msmis^mm 


THE  DURE  OF 
CAMERQN  AVENUE 


HENRY  KITCHELL^ 
SIAVEBSTERi 


^B    ?h7    SMS 


k3 


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The  Duke  of  Cameron  Avenue 

HENRY  KITCHELL  WEBSTER 


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The  Duke  of 
Cameron    Avenue 

BY 
HENRY   KITCHELL   WEBSTER 

AUTHOR  OF  "ROGER  DRAKE";    JOINT  AUTHOR 
OF  "  CALUMET   *  K,'  "    ETC. 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON  :   MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 
1904 

A/^  rights  reserved 


CorYRlGHT,  X903, 

By  the  success  COMPANY. 

Copyright,  1904, 
By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  ap,  cicctrotTped,  and  published  March,  1904. 


J.  8.  Cashing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co, 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Henry  Kitchell  Webster      .        .      Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

^'  He  was  looking  at  the  map  with  a  rapidly 

growing  interest "         .         .        .         .34 

^*  He  shook  his  finger  at  the  priest "    .        .86 


IW557905 


THE  DUKE  OF  CAM- 
ERON AVENUE 

CHAPTER   I 

JHE  fifth  annual  meeting  of  the 
Carter  Hall  Association  was 
nearly  over,  and  most  of  the 
twenty  associates  and  Douglas 
Ramsay,  the  warden,  were  glad  of  it. 
The  dinner  which  had  preceded  it  had 
been  long,  Ramsay's  report,  though  cut 
as  close  to  the  bone  as  he  knew  how  to 
cut  it,  had  not  been  short,  and  the  retir- 
ing president  had  fairly  surpassed  him- 
self. But  when  the  new  president's  turn 
came,  he  said  that  if  they  would  take  his 
speech  for  granted,  he  would  give  his 
time  to  Mr.  Ramsay.  He  believed  that 
9 


tHE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

Mr.  Ramsay  wanted  an  additional  ap- 
propriation to  the  one  which  covered 
his  regular  budget,  and  would  now  ex- 
plain what  he  wanted  it  for. 

This,  being  unexpected,  was  more  in- 
teresting, and  they  all  turned  a  little  to 
see  what  was  coming.  Ramsay  drew  his 
chair  closer  to  the  table,  and  hunched 
forward.  He  was  rather  a  raw-boned 
young  man  somewhere  in  the  early  thir- 
ties. His  features  were  not  finely  mod- 
elled ;  his  hands  were  big  and  knotted, 
and  he  gesticulated  so  violently  with 
them  that  his  coat-sleeves  worked  far 
back  from  his  wrists ;  his  voice  was 
rough  in  timbre,  and  the  range  of  his 
inflections  amazing.  He  worked  hard, 
he  talked  hard,  he  used  hard  words,  he 
even  smiled  hard.  But  for  all  that  he 
was  not  unamiable,  nor  underbred,  nor 
awkward,  nor  even  ill-looking.  What 
the  mitigating  quality  about  him  was, 
one  did  not  at  first  discover.  It  would 
seem  absurd  to  call  so  outspoken,  hard- 
hitting a  man  tactful,  but  for  three  years 

lO 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

he  had  worked  in  unbroken  harmony 
with  the  Carter  Hall  Association,  and 
his  various  predecessors  could  assure 
you  of  the  weight  of  that  fact  as  evi- 
dence. 

"  If  you  listened  to  my  report  just 
now,  you  know  better  than  I  shall  know 
myself  to-morrow  morning,  what  we  have 
been  doing,  how  many  babies  there  have 
been  on  the  average  in  the  day  nursery, 
how  many  boys  in  the  sloyd  classes,  and 
so  on.  So  far  as  we^re  concerned,  we've 
had  a  good  year.  We've  made  a  good 
showing.  How  much  we've  accom- 
plished for  the  ward  in  that  time,  I 
don't  know.  After  the  compliments  Mr. 
Payne  has  been  giving  me,  I  guess  I 
dare  own  up  that  I  don't  know  what  it 
is  that  we're  trying  to  accomplish." 

"Surely  you  don't  mean  that,  Mr. 
Ramsay."  It  was  a  white-haired  but 
fresh-complexioned  woman  who  inter- 
rupted him,  and  she  spoke  as  though 
reading  out  of  a  paper  before  a  club, 
"Isn't  it  to  give  those  poor  people  a 
II 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

glimpse  of  the  higher  life  and  to  help 
them  to  attain  it  for  themselves  ? '' 
There  was  a  slight,  indefinable  stir  all 
about  the  table  at  that.  It  quickened 
galvanically  at  Ramsay's  reply. 

"  No  doubt,  no  doubt,  but  what  does 
that  mean  }  How  are  we  going  to  trans- 
late it  into  terms  that  will  guide  our 
actions  t 

"In  the  last  typhoid  epidemic,'*  he 
went  on  hastily,  **  our  ward,  with  one- 
thirty-sixth  of  the  population  of  the 
city,  had  one-quarter  of  the  cases, — 
nine  times  too  many,  —  and  I  was  not 
surprised,  for  I  knew  what  the  sanitary 
conditions  were  before  it  happened.  In 
the  tenements  and  brothels  south  of 
Cameron  Avenue,  they're  at  the  worst, 
but  they're  nasty  enough  up  in  our  part 
of  the  ward.  I'll  not  go  into  details 
unless  you  want  me  to.  That  was  the 
first  investigation  I  made  on  coming  to 
Carter  Hall,  and  when  I  saw  how  things 
stood  I  began  trying  to  have  them 
bettered.     I  wrote  letters  to  the  news- 

12 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

papers,  and  after  Fd  compared  notes 
with  Robertson  and  Holmes  on  their 
wards  we  began  to  try  what  we  could 
to  get  a  reasonably  good  housing  and 
sanitary  bill  through  the  council.  We 
stopped  pretty  soon  because  we  saw 
that  we  were  trying  something  about  as 
possible  as  washing  up  a  dirt  road.  The 
man  who  stood  in  our  way  was  the 
chairman  of  the  housing  committee. 
He  holds  that  place  for  the  purpose  of 
preventing  any  such  bill  as  we  wanted, 
and  he  is  Alderman  Albert  GoUans  of 
our  ward — a  newspaper  the  other 
day  called  him  the  Duke  of  Cameron 
Avenue. 

"  Thafs  not  a  joke,"  he  went  on, 
raising  his  voice  above  the  rustle  of 
a  polite  laughter.  "  It's  a  scientific, 
historical,  precise  ''  —  and  at  every  word 
his  big  hand  made  the  glasses  jump  — 
**  designation  of  him.  He  levies  tribute 
and  grants  protection.  He  holds  the 
ward,  or  a  great  part  of  it,  in  a  strictly 
feudal  relation.'* 

13 


THE  DUKE,   OE  CAMERON  AVENUE 

He  leaned  farther  forward,  and  began 
to  talk  rapidly.  "  As  I  said,  I  know  a 
lot  less  than  I  did  three  years  ago.  I'm 
not  near  so  sure  what  altruism  means, 
nor  improvement  of  economic  condi- 
tions. I  used  to  like  to  lecture  on 
sociology,  as  they  call  it.  I  wouldn't 
do  it  now  for  a  hundred  dollars.  But 
I  do  know  something  about  the  ward 
and  the  people  in  it  and  the  way 
they  live.  And  I  know  that  if  Carter 
Hall  can  cleanse  the  Augean  stables, 
I  mean  literally,  if  it  can  compel  the 
landlords  by  law  to  fill  up  the  vaults 
and  flush  the  pipes  and  give  the  people 
air  to  breathe,  if  it  never  does  any- 
thing else,  it  will  have  justified  its  exist- 
ence/' 

His  voice,  when  he  said  it,  had  been 
clanging  in  their  ears  like  a  big  bell, 
but  now  he  checked  himself  suddenly. 
He  leaned  back  in  his  chair,  and  wiped 
his  red  forehead  with  a  handkerchief. 
Then  he  said  quietly,  "What  I  ask  of 
you  is  an  appropriation  of  two  thousand 
14 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

dollars  to  play  politics  with.  I  want  to 
tip  Al  Gollans  out  of  his  chair." 

It  was  ex-president  Payne  who  broke 
the  silence  which  followed.  The  shower 
of  heresies  had  thrown  his  thoughts 
into  some  confusion.  "  Our  policy  has 
always  been  opposed  to  that,  Mr.  Ram- 
say. We  have  regarded  our  work  as 
something  quite  outside  of  politics. 
We  want  to  elevate  the  masses  by  —  by 
the  leaven  of  culture  and  —  " 

**  Don't  you  want  to  think,"  put  in 
another  man,  "  what  the  consequence  of 
a  defeat  would  be  to  the  settlement, 
before  you  embark  on  such  an  enter- 
prise 1  Would  not  a  defeat  be  a  serious, 
a  fatal,  blow  to  our  influence  }  And  is 
not  such  a  conclusion  quite  possible } " 

"  I  can't  promise  a  victory,"  said 
Ramsay,  "  and  I  think  a  defeat  would 
no  doubt  impair  our  usefulness  for  a 
time."  Suddenly  he  thrust  his  body 
forward.  '*  You've  been  building  a 
ship,"  he  said.  **  You've  spent  five 
years  at  it.  We  don't  know  the  sea, 
15 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

except  that  it*s  stormy,  and  our  ship 
may  come  to  grief  in  it,  but  it's  better 
to  lose  a  spar  or  two  than  never  to  have 
tried  at  all.  If  we  can  ride  it  out,  weVe 
won  a  victory  for  the  whole  city  as  well 
as  for  ourselves,  and  perhaps,  if  the 
example  of  success  is  worth  anything, 
for  other  cities. 

"  I'm  not  asking  you  to  go  on  a  wild 
goose  chase,  either.  I've  canvassed  the 
ward  very  carefully,  and  I  think  we 
stand  a  very  good  chance  to  win.  I  can 
turn  our  men's  club  into  a  machine  of 
our  own  in  half  an  hour.  They're 
eager  for  something  like  that.  We  can 
carry  the  six  precincts  north  of  Cameron 
Avenue  and  west  of  A  Street.  That's 
as  certain  as  human  certainty  can  be." 

"  I  don't  know  what  Mr.  Ramsay 
means,  but  I'm  sure  —  at  least,  I  hope 
—  he  doesn't  intend  to  express  approval 
of  machine  politics,  and  certainly  not  to 
adopt  them  himself."  The  speaker  was 
a  deep-voiced  woman  in  a  black  gown. 
Her  name  was  Ficklin. 
i6 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

"I  should  say  it  depends  on  the 
machine,"  said  Ramsay.  **  I  can  imag- 
ine a  good  machine.  I  even  think  I 
could  build  one." 

But  the  deep  voice  went  on.  "We 
founded  Carter  Hall  for  the  purpose  of 
presenting  an  example,  an  ideal,  to  the 
poor  and  degraded.  And  rather  than 
that  we  should,  by  our  example,  sanction 
political  barter  and  bargaining  or  sully 
the  ideal  of  civic  purity  by  our  actions, 
I  would  undergo  fifty  defeats.  I  should 
consider  a  victory  as  the  only  disaster." 

A  young  lawyer  named  Dallas  spoke 
up  quickly.  "You  don't  agree  with 
Abraham  Lincoln,  then,  Mrs.  Ficklin.? 
You  know  he  said  that  good  statesman- 
ship was  using  individual  meanness  for 
the  public  good." 

Ramsay  grinned  across  the  table  at 
him.     "  Did  he  }  "  he  asked. 

"  Oh,  Fm  perfectly  capable  of  add- 
ing what  I  can  to  the  Lincoln  myth 
upon  occasion,"  rejoined  Dallas,  "but  I 
couldn't  make  up  anything  as  good  as 
c  17 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

that.  That's  according  to  Hay."  Then, 
with  hardly  a  pause,  he  went  on,  "  Tell 
us  some  more  about  our  chance  to  win, 
Ramsay." 

The  warden  made  no  reply  for  a 
moment,  but  eyed  the  wineglass  which 
he  spun  between  his  fingers.  When  he 
did  speak,  it  was  to  Mrs.  Ficklin. 

"  I'm  glad  you've  brought  up  the  sub- 
ject," he  said,  "because  it's  important 
that  we  should  all  understand  each  other 
on  that  point  before  we  go  any  farther. 
I  agree  with  you  that  one  should  take 
high  ideals  into  settlement  work,  and 
that  if  one  succeeds,  his  neighbours  be- 
come aware  of  those  ideals.  Perhaps 
that's  the  measure  of  his  success." 

He  was  hesitating  over  his  words, 
feeling  for  them  rather  cautiously,  and 
there  were  many  pauses  in  his  speech. 
**  But  ideals  aren't  a  matter  of  exter- 
nals. You  can't  consciously  present  one. 
You  can't  exhibit  an  immaculate  ideal 
as  you'd  wear  a  clean  collar.  If  you  do, 
it  will  soon  grow  rather  dingy.  If  you 
i8 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

keep  it  where  it  belongs,  why,  contact 
with  facts,  even  grimy  facts,  won't  soil  it. 
"  That's  theorising,  and  a  little  out  of 
my  line,"  he  went  on,  and  now  his  voice 
rose,  and  his  fist  thumped  out  his  periods 
on  the  table.  "  But  here  is  what  I  want 
to  say.  We  won't  mince  matters.  I'll 
not  go  into  politics  unless  you  tell 
me  to.  But  if  I  do  go  in,  it  will  be 
practical  politics.  I  won't  deal  in  pure 
abstractions  on  Cameron  Avenue  any 
more  than  I'd  talk  in  pure  Urdu.  I'll 
take  high  ground  when  I  can,  but  lower 
ground  in  default  of  it.  I'll  appeal  to 
anything  that  will  help  me  win,  and  that 
isn't  dishonest.  And  I  don't  call  it  dis- 
honest to  get  one  man  to  admire  the 
view,  and  to  show  another  that  the  situa- 
tion is  healthy,  and  to  point  out  to  a 
third  that  the  soil  is  good  for  potatoes. 
Before  I  go  in  you  must  decide  whether 
you  can  trust  me  with  a  free  hand.  I 
must  do  it  my  own  way.  I  shall,  no 
doubt,  do  a  few  things,  and  be  said  to 
do  a  good  many  more,  which  some 
19 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

of  you  will  think  are  wrong.  When 
it's  all  over,  I'll  tell  you  the  whole  story, 
and  you  can  judge  whether  it's  been  a 
hard  fight  and  a  fair  fight  or  not.  It 
will  be  too  late  then,  of  course,  to  mend 
matters,  and  so  I  say  again  that  now  is 
the  time  to  make  your  decision. 

"  And  just  this  much  more.  If  Fm 
whipped,  it  will,  as  I  said,  impair  the 
influence  of  Carter  Hall  for  a  while. 
But  I  won't  embarrass  you  by  staying 
where  I  am  after  I  have  outUved  my 
usefulness.  I'm  going  in  with  my  eyes 
open.  I  shall  play  myself  against  the 
Duke  of  Cameron  Avenue,  and  if  I  fail, 
I'll  take  the  medicine  that  the  leader  of 
an  insurrection  usually  gets. 

**  I've  made  my  speech  wrong  end  to. 
I  don't  want  you  to  think  about  the 
consequences  to  me  nor  even  to  Carter 
Hall.  I  want  you  to  remember  how 
poor  and  helpless  those  people  are  and 
how  they  died.  That  disease  doesn't 
take  the  sickly  ones,  those  who  haven't 
much  chance  anyway.     It  attacks  the 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

strong  men  who  are  carrying  them,  the 
men  and  women  who  earn  the  cabbage 
and  the  corn-meal  and  the  baskets  of 
coal.  I  could  show  you  a  map  with  the 
death  spots  all  over  it,  but  I  didn't  bring 
it  because  I  don't  want  you  to  think  of 
it  in  percentages.  If  this  association 
means  anything,  it  means  that  those 
people  are  your  neighbours ;  that  Peter 
Slavinski,  who  died  of  fever,  who  had 
ambitions  and  ideals  as  good  as  yours  and 
mine,  who  loved  his  children  as  you  do, 
was  your  neighbour,  and  that  his  family 
who  are  pitifully  trying  to  get  on  with- 
out him  are  your  neighbours,  too."  There 
was  a  pause,  and  then,  **  That's  all,"  he 
said.  "  Thank  you  for  listening  so  long." 
There  was  a  long  silence.  The  twenty 
associates  were  not  looking  at  the  warden 
nor  at  each  other.  At  last  somebody 
said,  "  I  move  that  the  appropriation  be 
made ; "  and  with  a  palpable  flutter  of 
relief  it  was  done.  "Thank  you,"  said 
Ramsay,  quietly.  By  common  consent 
the  meeting  was  over. 

21 


CHAPTER  II 


I  AM  SAY  walked  down  town,  and 
before  taking  the  car  out  to 
the  settlement  he  dropped  into 
a  little  caf6  where  they  raised 
no  objection  to  his  pipe,  and  sat  down 
to  a  hot  scotch  and  a  half-hour  of  soli- 
tary reflection.  Solitude  was  a  luxury 
not  often  to  be  enjoyed  by  the  warden 
of  Carter  Hall.  For  a  while  he  dis- 
missed Alderman  Gollans  and  the  plans 
for  the  insurrection  he  meant  to  lead 
against  him  from  his  mind  and  took  up 
another  less  important  but  not  uninter- 
esting matter. 

Just  after  the  meeting  had  broken  up, 
and  as  he  was  leaving  the  room,  the 
youngest  and  newest  of  the  twenty 
associates  had  accosted  him  and  asked 

22 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

whether  he  could  take  in  another  resi- 
dent at  Carter  Hall.  "  Because  if  you 
can,"  she  said,  "I'd  like  to  be  that  one." 
He  had  told  her  that  he  could  not  an- 
swer offhand.  The  Hall  was  supposed 
to  be  full,  but  it  might  be  possible  for 
him  to  manage  it.  He  would  let  her 
know  next  day. 

Thanks  to  a  late  uncle,  Anne  Cole- 
ridge had  quite  in  her  own  hands  a 
much  larger  income  than  she  could 
spend,  and  as  the  preoccupation  of  both 
her  parents  in  affairs  of  their  own  left 
her  as  much  to  herself  and  as  free  to  do 
as  she  pleased  as  a  girl  in  her  position 
in  society  could  be,  the  wonder  was, 
when  you  came  to  think  of  it,  that  she 
had  not  "gone  in  for  philanthropy" 
before.  What  little  he  knew  of  her 
Ramsay  liked.  He  liked  the  humorous 
droop  of  her  mouth  he  had  seen  when 
Mrs.  Carpenter  had  begun  her  well- 
known  dissertation  on  giving  the  poor 
a  gHmpse  of  the  higher  life ;  when  he 
had  said  he  would  let  her  know  next 
23 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

day  whether  he  could  make  room  for 
her  at  the  Hall  or  not,  he  liked  the 
flicker  he  caught  in  her  eyes,  which 
told  him  that  she  knew  why  he  hesi- 
tated and  that  she  did  not  take  it  amiss. 
But  still  he  was  not  sure  he  wanted 
her  at  the  Hall.  Ramsay  knew  two 
sorts  of  women  residents,  the  earnest 
and  the  gracious.  One  or  two  precious 
jewels  in  his  experience  had  been  both, 
but  that  only  proved  the  rule,  and  to 
preserve  anything  like  a  just  proportion 
between  those  classes  was  rather  a  nice 
matter.  There  was  no  doubt  where 
Miss  Coleridge  belonged.  She  pos- 
sessed a  charm  even  beyond  that  of 
most  women  of  her  birth  and  breeding, 
and  he  knew  that  none  would  more  in- 
fallibly perceive  it  nor  be  more  amena- 
ble to  it  than  his  neighbours  in  the  ward. 
But  how  she  would  affect  the  balance 
of  his  family  in  the  Hall  was  another 
matter.  He  knew  she  could  sing.  He 
had  heard  her  do  it,  and  play  her  own 
accompaniment  in  what  the  people  who 
24 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

knew  said  was  a  really  musicianly  way, 
so  he  was  sure  she  was  capable  of  help- 
ing out  Miss  Enderby,  but  he  didn't 
know  whether  she  would  or  not,  nor 
whether  Miss  Enderby  would  relish  it 
if  she  did. 

His  inclination  was  so  strongly  one 
way  that  he  resisted  it  for  a  while,  but 
soon  he  yielded.  "  She'll  keep  us  out 
of  the  sociological  rut,"  he  reflected, 
"  and  won't  it  be  a  recreation,  though, 
to  see  the  way  she'll  dress  for  dinner !  " 
Then  a  little  regretfully  he  put  her  out 
of  mind,  and  turned  his  attentions  to  a 
more  important,  but  less  beautiful,  ob- 
ject, the  chairman  of  the  housing  and 
tenement  committee.  Alderman  Albert 
GoUans. 

He  had  not  been  thinking  of  him 
three  minutes  when  the  man  himself 
walked  into  the  cafe,  escorting  a  couple 
of  gaudily  dressed  women.  He  wore  a 
dress  suit,  patent  leather  boots  which 
betrayed  the  fact  that  they  were  too 
small  for  him,  three  diamond  studs  in 
25 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

his  shirt,  and  a  derby  hat.  His  closely 
cropped  mustache  was  of  the  bristly, 
aggressive  sort,  but  his  hair,  under  some 
mollifying  influence  or  other,  submitted 
to  be  plastered  tight  to  his  head,  and 
shone  with  positive  brilliance.  He  car- 
ried his  overcoat  on  his  arm. 

Ramsay  watched  them  to  a  table, 
then  knocked  the  ashes  out  of  his  pipe 
and  finished  his  glass.  Just  as  he  put 
it  down  Gollans  recognised  him  and 
came  over  to  where  he  sat. 

"Won't  you  join  us,  Mr.  Ramsay.''** 
he  said  as  they  shook  hands.  "  I  guess 
you  don't  know  Mrs.  Gollans." 

**  I'm  just  going,"  said  Ramsay,  rising. 
"  Fve  been  out  all  the  evening,  and  I've 
a  lot  to  do  yet  to-night.  Thank  you, 
though." 

"  I  know  you  keep  pretty  busy."  The 
alderman  smiled  as  he  said  it.  *'  I  under- 
stand your  men's  club  out  at  Carter  Hall 
is  bigger  than  ever  this  year.  You 
haven't  asked  me  to  come  out  and  make 
them  a  speech  for  a  long  while." 
26 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

They  were  walking  together  toward 
the  door,  and  Ramsay  stopped  and 
faced  him.  He,  too,  was  smiling,  and 
he  held  out  his  hand.  If  the  warden 
had  ever  been  nice  in  the  matter  of 
hand-shaking,  he  was  well  over  it. 

"  I  invite  you  now,"  he  said  cordially. 
"Let's  see.  You're  chairman  of  the 
council  committee  on  housing  and  sani- 
tary matters.  Come  out  and  make  us 
a  speech  on  tenement  conditions  in  our 
ward,  rd  like  to  hear  it  myself,  and  I 
think  the  rest  would.     Good  night." 

It  was  late  when  Ramsay  reached  the 
settlement,  and  he  noted  with  satisfac- 
tion that  Carter  Hall  appeared  to  be 
asleep,  and  that  he  should  have  his 
private  office  quite  to  himself.  He  sat 
down  in  his  swivel  chair,  and  unlocking 
a  drawer  took  out  two  little  bundles  of 
memorandum  slips,  one  indorsed  *'  Inde- 
pendent," and  the  other,  "  Dr.  Haver- 
sham."  He  spread  them  out  before  him, 
keeping  the  two  sorts  distinct.  The  slips 
were  covered  with  figures:  additions, 
27 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

deductions,  computations,  totals,  grand 
totals  ;  such  as  might  appear  to  a  school- 
boy as  some  nightmare  problem  in  arith- 
metic. Patiently  he  went  over  it,  checking 
this,  altering  that,  often  consulting  a  card 
catalogue  on  his  desk,  or  a  filing  cabinet 
at  his  right  hand,  or  odd-looking  maps, 
which  he  pulled  up  from  an  ingeniously 
contrived  well  at  the  back  of  his  desk 
and  buttoned  over  the  edge  of  it.  When 
he  got  to  the  end,  he  drew  a  long  breath 
and  shook  his  head.  He  locked  up  the 
slips  indorsed  "  Dr.  Haversham  "  in  the 
drawer  again;  the  others  he  gathered 
into  a  bundle,  tore  them  very  fine,  and 
dumped  them  into  his  waste-paper 
basket. 

James  Haversham,  M.D.,  was  per- 
haps within  a  year  or  two  of  Douglas 
Ramsay's  age ;  he  was  as  good-looking 
as  regular  features,  a  pair  of  keen,  in- 
telligent eyes,  and  an  athletic  figure 
could  make  him.  He  had  a  light,  dry, 
nicely  inflected  voice;  he  could  talk 
about  a  great  many  things,  and  gave 
28 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

evidence  of  having  travelled  and  read 
rather  widely.  Altogether,  he  cata- 
logued very  well,  and  if  you  did  not 
like  him,  it  was  hard  to  say  why.  The 
only  thing  you  could  put  into  words 
against  him  seemed  to  be  that  he  was 
vain  of  his  hands,  and  bestowed  an  in- 
ordinate amount  of  pains  upon  them. 

The  ward  was  not  curious,  and  nobody 
asked  or  wondered  why  he  had  chosen 
to  settle  in  Cameron  Avenue,  except, 
perhaps,  one  of  the  newer  residents  at 
Carter  Hall,  who  nearly  always  sustained 
great  surprise  on  first  encountering  him. 
About  five  years  back  he  had  taken  the 
flat  over  the  drug  store  on  the  corner 
of  Cameron  Avenue  and  B  Street,  and 
had  hung  out  his  shingle.  His  first  step 
was  the  sagacious  one  of  making  friends 
with  the  police,  and  he  did  it  so  well 
that  it  was  not  long  before  most  of  the 
"emergency  cases*'  in  the  neighbourhood 
— and  there  were  a  good  many  between 
Saturday  noon  and  Monday  morning  — 
fell  to  his  share.  With  that  for  a  start, 
29 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

he  rapidly  accumulated  a  considerable 
practice  of  one  sort  or  another.  For- 
tunately it  is  not  necessary  to  go  farther 
into  it  than  to  say  it  paid  him  rather 
more  than  a  living. 

The  doctor's  chief  aspirations  were 
political.  He  had  joined  the  precinct 
democratic  club  at  the  outset,  and  he 
was  soon  the  most  important  member 
in  it.  At  the  next  club  election,  with 
the  true  politician's  instinct,  he  had  re- 
fused the  captaincy  himself  and  secured 
the  position  for  his  chief  rival  in  the 
club,  and  thereafter  gave  orders,  when 
necessary,  quietly,  from  behind  the 
throne.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  he 
knew  how  to  make  himself  useful  with- 
out making  himself  conspicuous.  After 
two  or  three  years  the  county  chanced 
to  go  democratic,  and  Haversham's 
share  in  the  victory  was  the  office  of 
county  physician,  and  a  modest  amount 
of  patronage  in  the  way  of  sixty-day 
jobs,  which  do  not  fall  under  civil  ser- 
vice rules  —  small  matters,  but  enough 
30 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

to  enable  him  to  maintain  himself  as 
democratic  boss  of  the  ward.  He  was 
only  minority  boss,  of  course,  for  the 
ward  and  Gollans,  with  the  city  admin- 
istration, were  republican.  He  made  it 
go  as  far  as  possible,  and  then  went  on 
as  before,  waiting  for  events  to  offer 
him  another  opportunity. 

Dr.  Haversham's  curiosity  was  smartly 
aroused  on  the  morning  after  the  an- 
nual meeting  of  Carter  Hall  Associa- 
tion, when  Ramsay  called  him  up  on 
the  telephone  and  asked  for  an  appoint- 
ment with  him.  "  If  you  can  come  out 
here  to  the  Hall,  I  guess  you'd  better. 
If  you  can't,  FU  come  to  your  office,'* 
he  said;  and  the  doctor,  wondering  what 
could  be  in  the  wind,  answered  that  he 
would  stroll  in  about  three  that  after- 
noon. 

He  did  stroll  into  Ramsay's  private 
office,  just  as  Mrs.  Ficklin,  who  lectured 
once  a  week  on  Browning  to  the 
Woman's  Club,  was  coming  out,  and 
the  coincidence  made  the  warden's 
31 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

greeting  of  the  democratic  boss  a  little 
more  spontaneous  than  it  otherwise 
might  have  been. 

"  Who  was  she  ? "  asked  the  doctor, 
as  Ramsay  closed  the  door.  **  IVe  seen 
her  somewhere,  or  her  picture." 

"  Her  picture  is  on  the  society  page 
at  least  once  a  season,  so  youVe  prob- 
ably seen  it.     She's  Mrs.  Ficklin.'' 

"Oh,"  said  Haversham.  The  indif- 
ference in  his  tone  was  a  bit  overdone, 
and  it  provided  Ramsay  with  a  new 
idea. 

The  doctor  sat  down,  and  took  a 
frankly  comprehensive  look  about  him. 
He  had  dined  at  Carter  Hall  once  or 
twice,  but  had  never  been  in  here.  "  Do 
you  know  that  this  reminds  me  of  Al 
GoUans's  office,"  he  said.  "  He  goes  in 
for  this  sort  of  thing."  A  wave  of  his 
hand  included  the  filing  cabinets,  card 
catalogues,  maps,  and  other  scientific 
paraphernalia.  "  He  has  regular  office 
hours,  and  when  a  man  goes  to  see  him 
he  makes  him  send  in  his  name.  It's 
32 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

ten  to  one  that  he  has  his  whole  biog- 
raphy in  his  card  catalogue,  and  then 
when  the  man  comes  in  he  knows  all 
about  him.  I  think  he  rather  over- 
works the  system,  myself,  though  I 
must  say  he  gets  good  results.  Do  you 
know  him  } " 

"Yes,  I  know  him  pretty  well.  As 
for  the  system,  it  can  be  overworked, 
but  still  you  can't  do  without  it.*' 

He  pulled  a  map  out  over  the  desk, 
and  motioned  Haversham  to  draw  up 
his  chair.  "  This  ought  to  interest  a 
doctor,"  he  said.  "  It  shows  the  sanita- 
tion in  the  ward.  I  suppose  you  know 
a  good  deal  about  it .? " 

**  I  know  it's  rather  primitive  and  very 
nasty.  However,  it  don't  bother  the 
people  out  here.  They're  used  to  it,  I 
suppose." 

"  They  aren't  so  used  to  it  that  they 
don't  die  of  it  like  flies,"  said  Ramsay, 
gravely. 

"Oh,  yes;  but  you  see,  they're  bound 
to  do  that  anyway.  They^U  find  some 
i>  33 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

capital  law  of  health  to  break.  If  it 
isn't  one,  it's  another."  He  was  looking 
at  the  map,  however,  with  a  rapidly- 
growing  interest.  **This  is  immense," 
he  said  presently.  "  If  we  could  only  see 
what  relation  the  deaths  in  the  last  epi- 
demic had  to  the  conditions  —  " 

Another  map  with  little  yellow  crosses 
strewn  over  it  was  under  his  eyes  in  an 
instant.  He  shook  his  head  over  it 
awhile,  and  then  laughed  shortly. 
"  Well,  that  tells  the  story."  And  then, 
ruefully,  "  You  don't  often  get  a  thing 
to  work  out  as  neatly  as  that.  Cause 
and  effect  aren't  as  a  rule  so  willing  to 
be  seen  in  each  other's  company.  I 
congratulate  you." 

"  No,  thank  you,"  said  the  warden, 
grimly.  "  It  comes  rather  closer  home 
than  that.  I  don't  mind  telling  you 
that  Fm  in  earnest.  It  is  my  purpose 
to  clear  up  that  map,  and  some  way  or 
other  I'm  going  to  do  it.  I  want  a  city 
statute  to  go  on.  Al  Gollans,  for  rea- 
sons of  his  own,  and  no  doubt  they're 
34 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

good  ones,  means  that  I  shan't  get  one. 
And  as  he's  chairman  of  the  housing 
and  sanitary  committee,  I  can't  get  my 
bill  through  him  nor  over  him  nor 
around  him;  so  Fm  going  to  try  to 
throw  him  out.  I'm  going  to  try  to  beat 
him  in  the  April  election." 

Though  it  was  in  the  power  of  Mrs. 
Ficklin  and  some  other  worthy  persons 
to  prod  him  to  growling,  Ramsay  was 
not  a  cynic.  He  took  the  highest  ground 
he  could.  He  knew  facts  enough  out 
of  Dr.  Haversham's  career  to  establish 
a  strong  presumption  as  to  his  charac- 
ter, but  in  the  absence  of  certainty,  he 
paid  him  the  compliment  of  holding  a 
high  motive  before  him.  If  there  was  a 
spark  of  generosity,  it  should  have  been 
a  breath  of  air,  not  a  wet  blanket. 

But  the  doctor  was  puzzled.  What 
was  Ramsay  driving  at  anyway  .'*  Where 
was  the  graft }  Why  talk  to  him  about 
Gollans }  He  would  give  something  to 
know  the  facts  of  the  case.  It  would 
do  no  harm  to  hold  back  a  little. 
35 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

"  Oh/'  he  said.  "  Independent,  anti- 
boss,  purity-of-the-polls,  turn-the-rascals- 
out,  reform  sort  of  thing,  I  suppose? 
Well,  I  don't  wonder  that  you  settle- 
ment people  try  that  on  once  in  a  while. 
But,  frankly,  Ramsay,  you  can't  make 
it  go  out  here.     That's  the  truth." 

**  I've  no  sneer  for  the  crusader,"  the 
warden  answered  thoughtfully.  "  He 
quickens  the  pulse,  anyway.  But  this 
isn't  going  to  be  a  crusade.  It's  to  be 
practical  politics.  I  didn't  ask  you  over 
here  with  nothing  more  substantial  to 
offer  you  than  Utopian  fancies.  It 
seems  to  me  that  for  the  present  our  in- 
terests lie  the  same  way.  You  want 
Gollans  out,  yourself.  But  your  demo- 
cratic machine  can't  do  it ;  you've  been 
trying  for  years.  And  my  —  call  it  re- 
form if  you  like  —  I'm  afraid  couldn't 
do  it  either.  But  together  we  should 
make  a  better  job  of  it.  Together,  with 
luck,  we  could  win." 

Haversham  shrugged  his  shoulders. 
"  We'd  be  glad  to  have  you  support  our 
36 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

man,  of  course,"  he  said.  He  was  act- 
ing again,  and  again  he  rather  overdid 
it.  Ramsay  laughed  and  shook  his 
head.  "It  won't  do,  doctor.  That's 
not  what  I  propose." 

"  What  you  propose  seems  to  be  that 
I  hand  over  the  democratic  machine  to 
help  push  along  your  gaudy  reform." 

"  I  only  want  to  borrow  it."  The  war- 
den's face  became  serious,  and  he  began 
to  speak  more  rapidly.  "See  here,  Hav- 
ersham.  This  is  a  matter  of  business. 
I'll  show  you  what  I  can  do.  I  think  I 
can  convince  you  that  I  can  deliver  the 
goods.  If  I  can,  we'll  add  together  what 
we've  got.  If  we've  a  chance  to  win, 
why  there's  a  victory  for  your  party  — 
and  a  personal  advantage  for  yourself." 

Ramsay  did  not  overdo  it.  The  last 
half-dozen  words  of  his  speech  had  no 
laboured  emphasis,  nothing  but  the  little 
hesitation  which  preceded  them,  but  still 
they  were  significant. 

"  Go  ahead,"  said  the  doctor.   "If  you'll 
show  your  hand,  I'll  show  mine." 
37 


CHAPTER   III 


|HERE  was,  of  course,  much  to 
be  taken  for  granted  by  each 
of  them,  and  they  plunged 
right  into  the  midst  of  things. 
There  were  many  short  cuts  and  perhaps 
as  many  roundabouts  in  their  talking 
— for  Haversham,  from  long  contrary 
habit,  found  it  difficult  to  keep  his  toe  to 
the  line.  So,  instead  of  trying  to  follow 
them,  we  will,  by  your  leave,  take  a  way 
of  our  own  to  reach  an  understanding, 
rough  but  tolerably  accurate,  of  the  sit- 
uation they  were  discussing  and  the  con- 
clusion they  finally  came  to. 

The  boundaries  of  the  ward  had  not 
originally  been  arranged  to  give  it  the 
look  of  a  headless  animal  lying  on  its 
back  and  sticking  two  very  unequal  legs 
straight  into  the  air,  though  a  first  glance 
38 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

at  the  map  might  lead  one  to  suppose  so. 
The  ward  had  been  cut  to  fit  a  variety  of 
exigencies,  and  Albert  GoUans  was  by- 
no  means  the  only  one  whose  conven- 
ience had  been  consulted.  The  first 
time  he  had  tried  to  carry  it,  he  had 


CARTER 

a 

HALI. 

MX 

TYLER  AVE 

1 

>• 

"*                                 6T.  STEBHENjS 
iSAMenOKJ  AVE. 

, -^•wvift""' 

The  Ward. 

found  himself,  as  he  liked  well  in  these 
latter  days  to  recall,  up  against  a  pretty 
fierce  proposition.  The  German  vote, 
north  of  Cameron  Avenue  and  between 
AandE  streets,  was  of  course  republican, 
that  is,  his  for  the  asking.  The  Italian 
39 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

quarter, between  Byron  and  Hood  streets, 
the  hind  leg  of  the  aninjal,  he  kept  in 
line,  through  the  agency  of  an  able  lieu- 
tenant, at  comparatively  small  expense, 
and  gave  it  very  little  personal  concern. 
The  shoulder  of  the  beast,  between 
Cameron  Avenue  and  the  river,  com- 
monly known  as  the  Frying-pan,  was  in 
the  nature  of  things  democratic,  and  after 
doing  his  best  to  have  it  included  in  the 
domain  of  his  colleagues  of  the  next 
ward,  Gollans  put  up  with  it  as  well  as 
he  could  and  snowed  it  under  as  deep 
as  possible  at  each  election.  It  was 
here  that  Dr.  Haversham  had  raised  his 
standard. 

Alderman  Gollans  made  his  fight  and 
won  his  triumph  in  the  centre.  The 
body  or  waist  of  the  ward  was  Polish. 
For  squares  and  squares,  tightly  packed, 
this  colony  was  practically  undiluted  by 
any  foreign  admixture.  A  few  antedilu- 
vian Irish  still  held  on  forlornly,  but 
every  year  saw  fewer  of  them.  The 
alderman's  keen,  strategical  eye  com- 
40 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

prehended  that  here  the  issue  was  to  be 
decided,  the  question  whether  he  was  to 
be  like  the  men  who  come  and  go,  or  like 
the  brook  which  goes  on  forever.  And 
so  here  he  settled  himself  and  concen- 
trated his  energies,  here  he  brought  to 
bear  all  the  ingredients  for  success  that 
he  could  muster.  He  was  a  little  better 
educated  than  most  ward  bosses  are,  he 
had  some  tact  and  a  tolerably  pleasant 
address.  In  none  of  these  particulars 
was  he  remarkable.  But  his  energy  was 
tireless  and  inexhaustible,  his  fidelity  to 
his  purposes  and  his  promises  unques- 
tioned, and  his  knack  for  organising,  for 
harmonising,  for  tying  his  strings  and 
twitching  his  puppets  about  on  the  stage, 
without  ever  himself  getting  into  the  view 
of  the  audience,  amounted  to  genius. 

As  might  have  been  expected,  he 
achieved  this  conquest  of  Poland  exactly 
according  to  his  plan.  He  did  it  so 
quietly  that  when  his  subjects  found 
themselves  aware  of  his  rule,  it  seemed 
as  though  it  had  always  existed.  As 
41 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

they  became  accustomed  to  it,  and  as 
each  successive  campaign  left  him  more 
strongly  intrenched,  his  authority  grew 
less  unobtrusive  though  never  irksome. 
He  was  frankly  a  personage  by  the  time 
Ramsay  was  planning  the  attack  upon 
him,  remote,  inaccessible.  His  favours 
were  not  cheap.  When  he  went  out 
among  his  people  to  their  merrymak- 
ings and  their  funerals,  which  he  did,  to 
be  sure,  rather  frequently,  he  did  it, 
somehow,  in  the  grand  manner,  like  a 
countess  opening  a  bazaar. 

Strong  and  in  undisputed  authority 
as  he  knew  himself  to  be,  he  was 
vaguely  aware  that  he  was  not  without 
a  potential  rival  —  potential  only,  for  he 
and  Father  Lauth,  as  state  and  church 
should  do,  had  pulled  together  and 
avoided  trenching  on  each  other*s  pre- 
serves. Father  Lauth  was  not  one  of 
the  officiating  priests  at  St.  Stephen's. 
It  is  hard  to  describe  his  functions 
better  than  to  say  that  he  was  a  sort  of 
ecclesiastical  general  manager  of  the 
42 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

parish.  All  the  secular  affairs  of  the 
church,  its  schools,  its  clubs,  its  classes, 
its  finances,  composed  his  special  prov- 
ince. The  alderman  knew  that  the 
priest  commanded  as  good  obedience 
and  as  much  awe  in  one  sphere  as  he 
himself  did  in  another,  but  the  fact  did 
not  trouble  him.  If  a  purely  academic 
question  could  have  interested  him,  he 
might  have  indulged  in  a  lively  specu- 
lation as  to  which  v/ay,  in  case  it  should 
come  to  a  tug  of  war  between  himself 
and  the  priest,  the  rope  would  go. 

All  of  this  was  perfectly  understood, 
of  course,  between  Ramsay  and  Haver- 
sham,  and  went  without  saying.  Ram- 
say's talk  at  first  concerned  itself  entirely 
with  the  German  colony  between  A  and 
E  streets  —  the  fat  foreleg  of  the  ward 
in  the  middle  of  which  Carter  Hall  was 
located.  He  pointed  out  that  Gollans 
had  hardly  strung  his  wires  nor  laid  his 
pipes  in  this  section  at  all.  He  had 
always,  as  has  been  said,  taken  for 
granted  that  the  German  vote  would  be 
43 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

republican,  and  so  far  events  had  borne 
him  out.  Ramsay's  belief  and  the  effect 
of  the  evidence  he  presented  was  that 
on  a  strictly  reform  issue,  an  issue  more- 
over which  touched  them  very  close 
home,  he  could,  with  the  aid  of  the  or- 
ganization he  had  already  perfected, 
swing  this  German  vote  into  line  and  de- 
liver it  even  to  a  democratic  candidate. 
**  These  people  out  here  are  a  good 
lot.  They're  doing  the  best  they  can 
for  themselves.  They  do  more  of  their 
own  thinking  than  most  of  the  people 
over  there  on  the  boulevard.  I  should 
put  the  matter  before  them  exactly  as  it 
looks  to  me.  They  read  the  Globe  over 
here  almost  to  a  man,  and  I  believe  I  can 
get  Hunter  to  back  me  up.  He's  pretty 
independent,  and  I  happen  to  know  that 
he  and  Gollans  have  a  score  to  settle 
when  the  time  comes.  I'd  make  a 
strictly  high-class  reform  movement  of 
it.  Get  the  biggest  people  in  the  city 
to  come  out  and  make  speeches  to  them, 
and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  I've  a  lot  of 
44 


THE  DUKE   OF   CAMERON  AVENUE 

confidence  in  my  neighbours  out  here, 
and  I  think  they've  a  good  deal  of  con- 
fidence in  Carter  Hall.'* 

That  came  as  the  conclusion  of  a  long 
speech,  minute,  technical,  clear-headed, 
but  hotly  in  earnest.  As  Dr.  Haver- 
sham  had  listened  to  it,  the  cynical 
incredulity  which  always  stopped  his 
ears  against  anything  less  sordid  than 
barter  melted,  and,  to  his  dismay,  he 
found  himself  believing  everything  Ram- 
say said.  In  vain  he  tried  to  put  up  the 
barriers  again,  to  force  a  smile  behind 
his  face,  and  to  speculate  where  the 
warden's  graft  was  coming  in.  He 
could  not  do  it.  The  blazing  integrity 
of  the  man  would  brook  no  denial.  It 
compelled  recognition. 

"There's  one  thing,  though,"  he  said 
when  Ramsay  finished.  *'You  won't 
swing  them  as  solid  as  you  could  on  the 
independent  racket.  They  may  see  the 
force  of  all  you  say,  but  they'll  hate  like 
hell  to  walk  over  into  the  democratic 
camp.'* 

45 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

"  I  know  it,"  said  the  warden.  "  This 
is  the  way  I  figure  it  out." 

Haversham  looked  at  the  memorandum 
slip  Ramsay  handed  him,  and  nodded 
thoughtful  approval.  "Well,"  he  said 
slowly,  "  I  believe  you're  right.  I  really 
believe  you're  right.  Come,  let's  see  how 
we  stand.  There's  the  Frying-pan.  Lord 
bless  us,  we  know  what  it'll  do,  and  it 
won't  need  any  mass-meetings  either." 

**  This  is  about  the  way  I  figure  it," 
said  Ramsay,  putting  another  sHp  of 
paper  before  him. 

The  doctor  glanced  at  it  and  then 
at  him  in  open  surprise.  "  Seems 
to  me  you've  got  it  down  pretty  fine 
for  a  reformer,"  he  said.  *'Yes,  that's 
about  right.  Conservative,  though,  if 
anything." 

Then  he  went  on.  "  Here's  some- 
thing that  counts  for  us.  Smith's  de- 
partment store  that  he's  just  opened  on 
the  avenue.  Gollans  pleaded  with  him 
not  to  do  it.  If  we  go  down  Cameron 
Avenue  waving  the  Chicago  platform  of 
46 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

'96  and  yelling  *down  with  the  trusts/ 
I  think  we  may  carry  it  —  though  it  is 
close  to  Gollans's  dead-line.  What  do 
you  think  ? " 

Ramsay  nodded.  "  We  pick  up  some- 
thing there,  anyway.  I  hadn't  thought 
of  that." 

*'  How  about  the  dagos  down  in  the 
poet's  corner  t " 

**  Say  we  break  even." 

"  Even  !  Why,  Gollans  owns  them, 
lock,  stock,  and  barrel." 

"  No,  he  don't.  He's  spent  some 
money,  and  he's  never  been  opposed. 
But  I've  a  card  up  my  sleeve  for  him. 
Those  people  are  nearly  all  Neapoli- 
tans. I  lived  for  a  while  down  in 
southern  Italy,  and  I  feel  pretty  well 
acquainted  with  them.  Carter  Hall  has 
been  doing  some  work  down  there  this 
year,  and  I've  made  some  good  friends 
among  them." 

"  Can  you  talk  Italian  }  " 

"They  don't  talk  Italian— that  is, 
not  literary  Italian.  Yes,  I  can  manage 
47 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

their  talk  pretty  well.  And  Fm  pretty 
sure  we'll  do  well  there.  We'll  break 
even,  anyway." 

Again  Haversham  believed,  not  only, 
this  time,  in  the  honesty,  but  in  the 
judgment. 

They  footed  up  the  totals.  There 
was  enough  to  justify  a  not  entirely 
insane  hope  of  winning,  but  they  must 
admit  they  had  figured  it  fine.  The 
map  of  the  ward  was  still  opened  out 
before  them,  and  the  doctor  clapped  his 
hands  over  the  outlying  parts  of  it,  leav- 
ing little  Poland  alone  in  view. 

"  Look  at  it,"  he  said.  "  There'll 
never  be  a  Partition  made  there.  It 
couldn't  be  scratched.  You  could  just 
as  well  go  up  against  Gibraltaf  with 
a  pickaxe.  We  can  do  our  best,  and 
we  may  make  him  cough  a  little,  but  I'm 
afraid  we'll  never  smoke  him  out  of 
there." 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Ramsay.  "  I've 
some  hopes  from  Father  Lauth." 

"Not  in  a  thousand  years.  Gollans 
48 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

does  about  as  much  to  support  his 
parochial  schools  as  all  the  rest  of  St. 
Stephen's  parish  together." 

"  Well,  I  don't  count  it  in  myself/* 
said  the  warden,  **  but  I  mean  to  have  a 
try  at  it.'* 

Both  men  leaned  back  a  little  more 
easily  in  their  chairs.  Haversham 
lighted  a  cigar.  "Well,"  he  said 
presently,  "for  the  sake  of  argument, 
say  we  win.  The  party  gets  a  victory, 
and  you  get  your  tenement  law.  You 
said  yourself  this  is  to  be  practical  poli- 
tics.    What  do  I  get .? " 

He  expected  Ramsay  to  wince  at 
that.  Indeed  he  put  it  brutally,  half  in 
the  hope  of  seeing  him  do  so.  But  the 
warden  went  on  quietly  filling  his  pipe, 
and  until  he  had  it  drawing  comfortably 
he  did  not  answer  the  question.  When 
he  did,  it  was  with  another  one. 

"What  chance  do  you  people  think 
you  have  of  putting  in  a  democratic 
mayor  a  year  from  now  }  Pretty  good, 
don't  you } " 

E  49 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  A  VENUE 

"Yes,"  said  Haversham.  ''It's  as 
sure  as  anything  so  far  off  can  be." 

Ramsay  nodded  agreement.  "  And 
it'll  be  on  a  platform  of  righteous  indig- 
nation and  promises  of  an  honest,  busi- 
nesslike, economical  administration." 
He  paused  there.  Then,  "  I  don't  see 
why  you  aren't  the  next  health  com- 
missioner," he  said. 

Haversham  was  quick  enough,  and  he 
needed  no  further  hint.  How  perfectly 
logical,  inevitable,  it  was!  He,  the 
young  doctor  who  had  done  so  much  — 
more  than  any  one  else,  it  would  be 
easy  to  say  —  to  bring  in  the  great  san- 
itary reform,  the  doctor  whose  eloquent 
speeches  everybody  had  read.  What 
appointment  would  be  more  popular.'* 
And  what  a  fitting  reward  it  would  be 
for  the  politician,  who,  after  years  of 
effort,  had  swung  that  impregnable 
republican  ward  into  the  democratic 
column !  And  last  and  best,  how  ex- 
actly it  squared  with  his  ambitions !  He 
really  had  a  pride  in  his  profession, 
50 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

and  here  was  a  chance,  without  step- 
ping out  of  the  game  of  politics,  to 
make  a  name  for  himself  among  his 
brothers  in  the  profession,  among  the 
very  men  who  now  looked  at  him 
askance.  It  was  perhaps  a  little 
triumph  for  the  warden  that  for  a  mo- 
ment, at  least,  James  Haversham  be- 
lieved in  himself. 

"  I'll  make  a  good  one,"  he  said  seri- 
ously. "  You  shan't  be  ashamed  of  me. 
Come,  let's  get  to  work." 


5^ 


CHAPTER   IV 


[HERE  was  work  enough  to  do. 
Busy  men  as  they  were,  ex- 
acting as  was  the  daily  routine 
of  each,  yet  somehow  into 
every  day  they  managed  to  crowd  a 
long  consultation  over  the  campaign  in 
which  they  were  allied.  It  was  a  little 
surprising,  even  to  themselves,  that  they 
got  on  so  well  together.  They  were  as 
opposite  as  the  poles,  and  though  each 
knew  approximately  what  to  expect  of 
the  other  in  given  circumstances,  there 
was  as  little  real  understanding  between 
them  as  there  was  sympathy  or  friend- 
ship. But  they  were  willing  to  take 
each  other  for  granted.  Both  had  a 
faculty  often  denied  to  men  of  un- 
doubted intelligence  for  keeping  to  the 
point  in  a  discussion ;  they  did  not  side- 
52 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

track  easily  nor  irritate  each  other  with 
argument  which  was  outside  the  issue. 
They  had  for  the  moment  a  common 
object,  and  they  brought  into  the  talk 
nothing  which  had  not  that  object  in 
view.  After  they  had  separated,  it  was 
another  matter.  Haversham  was  likely 
to  be  more  cynically  pungent  for  an 
hour  or  two,  and  as  for  Ramsay,  he 
felt  like  brushing  his  teeth.  St.  Paul's 
injunction  to  think  on  things  that  are 
pure  and  lovely  and  of  good  report 
often  occurred  to  him,  and  he  wished 
that  after  each  of  these  consultations 
he  might  have  time  to  do  it  for  a 
while. 

The  selection  of  a  candidate  who, 
as  nearly  as  possible,  would  meet  all  the 
somewhat  contradictory  requirements  of 
the  bill  was  their  first  problem,  and  it 
cost  them  a  good  many  hours  of  canvass- 
ing to  find  him.  When  they  first  be- 
gan talking  about  it,  each  was  a  little 
afraid  that  the  other  might  be  ambitious 
to  head  the  ticket  in  person,  but  they 
53 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

were  not  long  in  coming  to  an  under- 
standing on  that  score. 

"  Let's  begin  with  ourselves,"  said  the 
warden.  "  Td  like  to  run,  but  that's  out 
of  the  question.  Even  if  you  could 
swing  the  democratic  vote  for  me, 
which  you  couldn't  without  a  row,  it 
wouldn't  do.  I  can  ask  the  people 
around  the  Hall  here  to  vote  for  a  re- 
form, but  I  can't  ask  them  to  vote  for 
me  —  or  if  I  did,  it  wouldn't  do  any 
good.     How  would  you  do  .'^ " 

"I  meant  to  try  to  break  into  the 
council  this  year,"  said  Haversham.  **  But 
on  a  reform  movement  I  wouldn't  do  at 
all.  I've  got  what  they  call  a  record. 
Before  I'd  been  nominated  three  days 
your  people  would  have  heard  enough 
about  me  to  queer  any  reform  on  earth." 

"  I  think  you're  right.  Though  of 
course  GoUans  will  say  things  about  any 
one  we  put  up." 

"  But  you  see,"  said  Haversham,  pleas- 
antly, "  in  my  case  he  could  prove  them 
true." 

54 


THE  DUKE    OF  CA  HIE  RON  AVENUE 

After  the  ground  was  thus  cleared 
they  went  ahead  less  cautiously,  but  for 
a  long  time  with  no  success.  They 
were  looking,  as  Ramsay  pointed  out, 
for  a  living  paradox,  for  a  member  in 
good  standing  of  the  democratic  ma- 
chine, yet  out  of  politics  enough,  in- 
dependent enough,  so  that  with  the 
sugar-coating  of  a  reform  issue  he  would 
be  a  comparatively  easy  pill  for  the 
German  republicans  around  Carter  Hall 
to  swallow.  "The  best  we  can  do,'* 
said  Ramsay,  at  last,  "  will  be  to  look  for 
a  man  w^ho  doesn't  suit  either  of  us." 
And  it  was  in  some  such  way  that  they 
came  upon  him. 

"  Do  you  know  Schmeckenbecker  } " 
Haversham  asked,  not  very  enthusi- 
astically. 

The  warden  laughed.  "  The  fat  little 
cigar-manufacturer  down  near  your  place 
on  the  corner }   Yes,  I  know  him,  but  —  " 

"  That's  just  the  way  I  feel  about 
him,  so  maybe  he'll  do.  Let's  talk  him 
over.'* 

SS 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

They  were  both  surprised  to  see  how 
well  he  summed  up.  "And  yet,"  said 
Ramsay,  "  I  can't  help  wishing  he  was 
better.  He's  popular  enough  and  in- 
conspicuous and  respectable  and  all 
right  on  the  labour-union  question,  and 
he's  no  fool  either.  But  I'm  afraid  he's 
something  of  a  mule,  wrong-headed  and 
a  puller." 

"  Oh,  he's  all  of  that.  He'd  give  us 
our  hands  full.  But  the  worst  I've 
against  him  is  his  name,  Schmecken- 
becker.  You  laughed  yourself  when  I 
mentioned  it.  It  makes  him  a  come- 
dian in  spite  of  himself.  That's  why  he 
takes  himself  so  seriously.  Nobody  else 
will.  But  that  may  not  hurt  him,  after 
all." 

"Will  he  run  ?  "  asked  Ramsay. 

"  Will  he  !  "  said  the  doctor.  He  was 
drumming  on  the  desk.  "  Schmecken- 
becker,  Schmeckenbecker,"  he  was  say- 
ing to  himself.  "Well,  anyway,  the 
republicans  will  have  trouble  making 
the  German   vote  believe  that  he's  an 

56 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

Irishman  —  or  a  Polack  either."  He 
turned  a  little  in  his  chair,  and  his  voice 
when  he  went  on  had  a  somewhat  dif- 
ferent quality.  "You  know  the  Ger- 
mans hate  the  Poles  like  sin.  It's  queer 
they've  voted  together  so  long,  when 
you  come  to  think  of  it." 

"  Gollans  isn't  a  Pole,"  said  Ramsay. 

"  But  he  might  very  well  be,"  re- 
joined the  doctor,  with  a  grin. 

Ramsay  never  demanded  any  unnec- 
essary explanations,  and  he  let  the  doctor 
enjoy  the  joke  by  himself. 

They  threw  the  net  a  good  many  times 
after  pulling  up  Schmeckenbecker,  but 
they  got  nothing  in  the  way  of  potential 
candidates  that  was  nearly  as  good,  so 
at  last  they  decided  that  for  better  or 
for  worse  he  was  the  man. 

One  day  the  warden,  who  had  hardly 
more  than  seen  him  before,  went  down 
to  Cameron  Avenue  for  a  good  look  at 
him.  He  found  Schmeckenbecker  in 
his  steamy  little  shop,  solemnly  throw- 
ing dice  with  a  clothing  dealer  from 
57 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

across  the  street.  After  this  customer 
had  gone,  Ramsay  bought  half  a  dozen 
La  Flor  de  Eugene  V.  Debs  cigars  for 
a  quarter,  lighted  one,  and,  puffing  com- 
fortably away  at  it,  fell  into  conversa- 
tion with  the  proprietor.  It  may  be 
said  in  passing  that  altogether  that  was 
not  an  easy  thing  to  do,  either  as  re- 
garded the  cigar  or  the  maker  of  it. 
The  cigar  needs  no  description  beyond 
that  it  was  "honest  union  goods,'*  but 
years  of  attendance  at  labour  meetings 
had  taught  Ramsay  to  consume  any- 
thing that  would  burn  without  the  least 
discomfort.  As  to  Schmeckenbecker, 
in  spite  of  his  farcical  name  and  appear- 
ance, perhaps  on  account  of  them,  as 
Haversham  suggested,  Ramsay  found 
him  inclined  to  be  somewhat  stiff  with 
a  comparative  stranger. 

But  when  he  took  his  leave,  half  an 
hour  later,  he  felt  much  better  satisfied 
than  he  had  done  before.  The  man  was 
clearly  popular  in  the  neighbourhood,  in 
spite  of  his  pomposity,  which  nobody 
58 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

seemed  to  take  very  seriously.  He  was 
very  much  in  earnest  about  everything 
he  said,  and  his  tendency  to  oratory,  to 
rolling,  involute  billows  of  speech,  would 
not  come  amiss  when  he  began  stumping 
the  ward.  If  he  should  take  tenement 
reform  as  seriously  as  he  took  everything 
else,  he  would  really  do  very  well  indeed. 

That  matter  off  his  mind,  there  was 
but  one  thing  more  for  him  to  bestir 
himself  about  until  after  the  primary. 
All  the  business  of  getting  Schmecken- 
becker  nominated  by  the  democratic 
party  was  left,  of  course,  to  Haversham, 
and  was  undertaken  and  executed  by 
him  with  the  utmost  nonchalance. 

Ramsay's  task  was  to  enlist  the  Even- 
ing Globe  newspaper  in  the  support  of 
their  candidate.  It  was  of  critical  im- 
portance that  this  should  be  accom- 
plished, for,  as  the  warden  had  said, 
practically  every  man  of  them  in  the 
German  corner  of  the  ward  not  only 
read  the  Globe,  but  thought  pretty  much 
according  to  its  editorial  page. 
59 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

Hunter,  the  editor  and  proprietor, 
was  a  good  friend  of  Ramsay's,  and  he 
welcomed  him  warmly  when  the  warden 
came  into  his  office  late  one  afternoon. 
"What  are  you  doing  out  at  Carter 
Hall  these  days  ?  We  haven't  heard  a 
word  from  you  in  a  long  while." 

"  You  will  hear  enough  of  us  pretty 
soon  to  make  up  for  that,"  said  Ramsay ; 
and  with  that  introduction  he  plunged 
into  his  story. 

He  was  surprised  and  keenly  disap- 
pointed to  find  that  Hunter  was  anything 
but  enthusiastic  over  his  prospective  cam- 
paign against  Gollans.  The  deep  frown 
and  the  strumming  fingers  gave  small 
promise  of  the  vigorous  support  which 
Ramsay  had  so  confidently  expected. 
Upon  most  men  the  effect  of  that  kind 
of  an  audience  is  deadly;  one  loses 
heart,  doubts  one's  own  cause,  conjures 
up  swarms  of  objections  and  difficulties 
which  never  before  had  showed  their 
heads.  But  to  Ramsay,  even  in  his  dis- 
appointment, this  unexpected,  and  as  yet 
60 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

unspoken,  hostility,  was  simply  a  spur. 
He  had  never  told  his  story  so  clearly, 
had  never  pictured  the  conditions  he  was 
fighting  so  vividly,  had  never  believed  in 
his  own  cause  so  devoutly,  as  at  this 
moment.  He  told  everything  ;  the  alli- 
ance with  Haversham,  the  trade  he  had 
made  with  him,  the  selection  of  the  fat 
little  cigar-manufacturing  candidate. 

He  gained  some  ground,  —  he  com- 
pelled many  a  reluctant  nod  of  assent 
from  the  man  at  the  desk ;  but,  when  all 
was  said,  he  was  still  frowning  thought- 
fully. 

"  I  wish  you  had  come  to  me  before 
you  lighted  the  fuse.  This  political 
blasting-powder  business  always  makes 
trouble.  Of  course  you're  right  about 
your  tenement  bill.  It  ought  to  go 
through,  and  it's  outrageous  that  Gollans 
has  blocked  it.  But  if  you'd  come  to  us, 
we  could  have  put  the  screws  on  Gollans 
and  made  him  get  out  of  the  way." 

"  I  don't  see  yet  what  harm  my  ex- 
plosion will  do,"  said   Ramsay.     '*  But 
6i 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

now  tell  me  the  truth.  Fve  no  doubt 
that  now,  rather  than  have  the  explo- 
sion, you'd  get  the  Great  Ones  to  put 
the  screws  on  Gollans.  But  would  you 
have  done  it  before  Fd  lighted  the 
fuse?" 

Hunter  said  nothing,  but  his  some- 
what rueful  smile  made  it  unnecessary. 

"  I  didn't  know  you  were  so  tender  of 
Gollans.  And  I've  been  reading  edi- 
torials in  the  Globe  for  the  last  three 
years,  too.  But  evidently  I've  left  some- 
thing essential  out  of  my  calculations. 
Do  you  mind  telling  me  what  it  is  ?  " 

"Why,  have  you  forgotten,  my  dear 
young  friend,  that  old  Uncle  John's  term 
in  the  Senate  expires  a  year  from  next 
March,  and  that  we're  going  to  have 
the  fight  of  our  lives  to  send  him  back } 
Haven't  you  noticed  that  the  Rubes  up 
the  state  are  getting  everything  ready 
to  send  one  P.  J.  Jimpson,  from  some- 
where out  in  the  corn,  in  his  place.? 
Unless  we  can  carry  every  state  legisla- 
tive district  in  the  county,  we're  lost. 
62 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

Thunder!  We're  likely  to  be  on  the  little 
end  of  the  joint  ballot  altogether,  and 
see  a  democrat  go  from  this  state  to  the 
United  States  Senate.  And  yet  you 
can't  see  what  harm  it  would  do  to  turn 
in  for  all  we  are  worth  to  swing  a  per- 
fectly safe,  solid  republican  district  into 
the  democratic  camp." 

"I  know,  of  course,"  said  Ramsay, 
with  a  sigh,  "that  you  can't  throw 
stones  into  a  pond  without  making  rip- 
ples. And  I  suppose  throwing  in  as 
big  a  chunk  as  Al  GoUans  is  will  make 
quite  a  splash.  But  I  don't  see  yet 
what  harm  the  splash  will  do. 

"Oh,  I  know,"  he  went  on,  as  Hunter 
moved  to  interrupt  him.  "  I  understand 
that  old  Uncle  John  is  a  nice,  amiable 
old  man,  and  it  would  be  a  pity  to  turn 
him  out.  He  makes  no  trouble,  and  it 
isn't  likely  that  he  could  get  another  job 
if  he  lost  this  one.  I  believe,  for  my 
part,  though  I'm  no  expert,  that  a  mild 
cathartic,  such  as  this  spring  campaign 
will  be,  would  do  the  republican  party 
63 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

in  this  county  more  good  than  harm, 
would  help  Uncle  John  rather  than  hurt 
him.     But  what  does  it  matter  ?  " 

His  voice  rose  and  rang  with  a  cry  of 
anger  in  it.  "  Come  out,  man,  with  me, 
and  have  a  look.  Come  out  and  see 
whether  you  don't  think  that  the  amount 
of  Karl  Marx's  patent  medicine  they're 
taking  out  there  isn't  more  danger- 
ous even  than  one  more  fire-breathing, 
cloven-footed  democrat  in  the  very 
United  States  Senate.  Come  and  see 
what  chances  the  citizens  will  have  that 
weVe  breeding  there  in  the  tenements, 
and  what  kind  of  citizens  they'll  make.'* 

The  sentence  snapped  off  short,  and 
there  was  a  curious,  electrical  feehng  in 
the  silence  that  followed. 

"  Oh,  the  deuce  take  you  reformers !  " 
said  Hunter.  "  Yes,  I'll  do  what  I  can 
for  you,  though  I  don't  promise  how 
much  it  will  be." 


64 


CHAPTER  V 

IISS  COLERIDGE  answered 
the  note  she  received  from 
Ramsay  the  morning  after  the 
annual  meeting  by  moving  out 
to  Carter  Hall,  bag  and  baggage,  the 
very  next  day.  It  had  been  arranged 
that  she  was  to  share  Mrs.  Patton's 
apartment,  which  was  in  the  new  build- 
ing on  the  east  side  of  the  quadrangle 
and  accommodated  two  very  easily.  She 
found  herself  quite  at  home  almost  at 
once,  and  in  a  week  she  had  slipped 
into  the  harness  and  was  doing  as  big 
a  day's  work  as  anybody  ought  to  do. 

By  no  means  the  least  of  Anne  Cole- 
ridge's charms  was  a  knack  for  doing 
things  easily,  without  commotion;  and 
she  not  only  had  it,  she  knew  she  had  it, 
and  that  it  was  —  well,  that  people  liked 

F  65 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

things  done  that  way.  She  was  on  her 
mettle  when  she  came  out  to  Carter 
Hall,  and  so  gracefully  and  quietly  did 
she  launch  herself  into  the  routine  of 
residence  there  that  few  people  noticed, 
even,  how  easily  she  did  it.  They  simply 
took  her  for  granted. 

Ramsay  was  off  lecturing  somewhere 
the  day  she  came,  but  the  next  evening 
when  he  sat  down  at  the  head  of  the 
long  table,  he  noticed  that  in  some  subtle 
way  or  other  she  seemed  completely  to 
belong  there.  And  it  was  a  recreation 
to  see  the  way  she  had  dressed  for 
dinner. 

She  had,  of  course,  often  visited  at 
the  Hall,  but  not  until  she  had  been 
several  days  in  residence  there  did  she 
comprehend  fully  what  an  immense,  com- 
plex, nicely  adjusted  institution  it  was, 
and  what  a  talent  for  administration  was 
demanded  of  the  warden.  He  ran  it  all 
too  well,  she  thought,  to  get  the  credit 
for  it,  and  she  found  many  of  her  fellow- 
residents  with  the  notion  that  Carter 
66 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

Hall  ran  itself.  Yet  no  difficulty  was 
too  minute,  no  detail  too  insignificant 
to  be  laid  before  him,  and  she  saw  that 
whether  it  was  the  first  question  or  the 
twentieth  since  dinner,  whether  he  was 
allowed  to  do  one  thing  at  a  time,  or 
expected  to  do  half  a  dozen,  his  answers 
were  never  hasty  nor  dogmatic,  and  that 
judging  from  the  range  of  them,  there 
was  hardly  a  detail  connected  with  the 
settlement  which  was  not  at  his  tongue's 
end  or  his  finger  tips.  She  reflected 
that  a  man  as  quick  and  eager  as  he  was 
could  hardly  be,  by  nature,  a  patient 
man,  either. 

Indeed,  she  found  the  warden  inter- 
esting and  admirable,  and  there  were 
some  standing  contradictions  about  him 
which  piqued  her  curiosity.  How  did 
he  manage,  she  wondered,  to  do  so  com- 
pletely away  with  the  forms  and  flour- 
ishes of  politeness,  and  still  to  preserve 
the  thing  itself }  And  why  was  it  that 
he  could  blurt  out  anything  that  came 
into  his  mind  to  say,  the  most  amazing 
67 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

indiscretions  they  seemed  sometimes, 
without  setting  people  by  the  ears? 
She  watched  him,  from  a  distance,  rather 
minutely  during  her  first  days  at  Carter 
Hall  —  from  a  distance,  because  she 
knew  he  was  doing  two  men's  work,  and 
she  did  not  intend  that  he  should  be 
badgered  by  her  society  unless  he  chose 
to  be. 

The  day  after  the  democratic  ward  con- 
vention nominated  Schmeckenbecker, 
they  opened  the  campaign  in  the  north- 
ern part  of  the  ward  with  a  mass-meet- 
ing in  the  auditorium  at  Carter  Hall,  and, 
in  company  with  a  number  of  the  resi- 
dents. Miss  Coleridge  attended  it.  There 
were  all  the  accessories  of  a  political 
meeting,  a  brass  band,  a  semicircle  of 
vice-presidents  on  the  platform,  with 
Ramsay  and  the  candidate,  very  red  and 
shiny,  in  the  middle.  The  hall  was 
packed. 

One  of  the  vice-presidents  made  a 
few  inaudible  remarks  and  was  cordially 
applauded  by  everybody,  when   he  sat 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

down  much  sooner  than  might  have 
been  expected ;  Ramsay  introduced  Mr. 
Schmeckenbecker  in  as  few  words  as 
possible,  and  the  serious  business  of  the 
evening  began. 

Anne  Coleridge  found  difficulty  in 
taking  it  seriously,  and  though  outwardly 
she  betrayed,  of  course,  no  unseemly 
levity,  she  found  the  cigar  manufacturer 
more  amusing  than  instructive.  He  was 
speaking  pretty  well,  too,  and  what  he 
said  was  by  no  means  foolish,  yet  the 
imposing  solemnity  of  the  fat  little  man 
was  undeniably  comical.  He  concluded 
with  a  prodigious  burst  of  oratory  and 
bowed  several  times  very  complacently 
in  response  to  the  applause,  which, 
though  not  rapturous,  was  a  good  deal 
warmer  than  she  had  expected  to  hear. 

When  it  died  away,  Ramsay  came 
forward.  **  As  the  candidate  has  very 
well  said,"  he  began,  and  Miss  Coleridge 
smiled,  for  now  the  thing  was  said  well. 
He  went  on  for  perhaps  fifteen  minutes, 
summing  up  the  turgid  oratory  in  a 
69 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

rapid,  straightforward,  businesslike  pres- 
entation of  the  case,  always  as  though 
simply  giving  assent  to  what  the  candi- 
date had  already  made  sufficiently  clear. 
He  concluded :  — 

"  It  looks  well  for  the  future  of  this 
city  when  a  municipal  party  declares  its 
independence  of  national  questions,  and 
takes  its  stand  on  a  purely  municipal  is- 
sue, and  on  an  issue,  moreover,  that  is 
vital  to  the  well-being  of  all  of  us.  And 
I  am  standing  here  to  pledge  to  Mr. 
Schmeckenbecker,  in  behalf  of  Carter 
Hall,  and  I  hope  of  all  its  friends  and 
all  the  friends  of  good  government,  our 
enthusiastic  support." 

And  then  there  came  a  shout  that  was 
a  shout,  and  another  and  another,  till 
the  body  of  sound  pent  up  in  the  crowded 
room  seemed  to  have  material  weight. 
The  blood  surged  into  Anne  Coleridge's 
face,  and  she  wanted  to  shout  herself. 
It  did  not  occur  to  her  till  afterwards 
that  perhaps  the  Men*s  Club  had  had  a 
good  deal  to  do  with  setting  that  wave 
70 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

of  enthusiasm  into  motion  at  just  the 
right  time. 

She  was  caught  in  an  eddy  in  the 
crowd  which  was  streaming  out  of  the 
hall  and  was  one  of  the  last  to  reach 
the  door.  Then  she  heard  the  warden 
call  her  name. 

"  So  you  came  to  the  launching,"  he 
said,  coming  up  to  her.  **  Let  me  in- 
troduce Mr.  Schmeckenbecker,  Miss 
Coleridge." 

She  knew  perfectly  well  that  Ramsay 
was  not  addicted  to  performing  miscel- 
laneous introductions,  that  he  followed 
the  English  custom  in  such  matters 
much  closer  than  most  Americans  do. 
She  guessed  what  he  wanted  of  her, 
and  cordially  held  out  her  hand  to  the 
little  candidate. 

"  I  think  you^re  doing  a  splendid 
thing,"  she  said.  **A  great  many 
people's  lives  will  be  happier  if  you 
succeed." 

After  he  had  left  them.  Miss  Cole- 
ridge and  the  warden  walked  together 
71 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

down  the  passage  toward  the  drawing- 
room. 

"  Thank  you,"  he  said.  **  I'm  a  bit 
nervous  about  Schmeckenbecker.  He's 
all  right,  but  hard-mouthed,  Tm  afraid. 
Unless  you  get  him  headed  right  at  the 
start,  he's  likely  to  bolt  the  track.  You 
didn't  mind  being  called  in,  did  you  ?  " 

"Of  course  not."  She  thought  she 
deserved  some  credit  for  having  guessed 
so  well,  but  she  was  amused  —  and 
pleased,  too  —  that  he  should  so  confi- 
dently take  her  for  granted. 

They  went  on  into  the  drawing-room  in 
silence,  but  then,  as  she  nodded  and 
walked  away,  he  came  out  of  whatever 
had  preoccupied  him.  "  Are  you  busy 
for  the  next  half  hour  t "  he  asked 
abruptly. 

"  Since  it's  half  past  ten  o'clock  at 
night,  ril  call  my  day's  work  over,"  she 
said,  smiling,  "unless  there's  some- 
thing you  want  me  to  do." 

'*  Oh,  just  sit  down  in  this  Morris 
chair  for  a  while  and — well,  do  any- 
72 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

thing  you  please.'*  He  smiled,  too, 
asked  if  he  might  light  a  cigarette,  and 
moved  another  chair  around  opposite 
the  one  he  indicated.  She  did  as  he 
asked,  but  chose  to  wait  for  him  to  be- 
gin the  conversation. 

He  was  in  no  hurry,  it  seemed,  but 
as  she  watched  him,  she  saw  a  puzzled 
look  come  into  his  face  which  deepened 
into  a  frown  of  annoyance.  **  It's  ri- 
diculous," he  burst  out  at  last,  **but  for 
anything  I  can  remember  to  the  con- 
trary, I've  invited  you  out  here  and  left 
you  to  shift  for  yourself.  I  can't  recall 
having  spoken  to  you  or  to  anybody  else 
about  you." 

She  was  shaking  her  head  and  trying 
not  to  smile. 

"  I'm  sorry  I'm  such  an  ass.  It  didn't 
occur  to  me  till  this  minute  that  you 
hadn't  been  out  here  a  long  while. 
We'll  try  to  make  amends  at  once." 

**  Oh,  I'm  quite  settled  and  getting 
along  beautifully.  And  it  wasn't  your 
fault  at  all.  With  politics  added  to  your 
73 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

regular  work,  you  had  enough  to  do,  and 
I  was  careful  to  keep  away  from  under 
foot.  I  didn't  give  you  any  chance  to 
bother  about  me,  really."  It  struck  her 
that  this  might  sound  Uke  a  clumsy  lead 
for  a  compliment.  She  couldn't  blame 
him  for  doing  anything  she  had  made 
so  obvious,  but  she  hoped  he  would  not 
pay  it. 

**  If  a  few  more  people  were  as  thought- 
ful as  that  —  "  he  began.  This  was  not 
the  compUment  she  had  been  afraid  of. 
Then,  **  What  do  you  think  of  Schmeck- 
enbecker } " 

"  I  don't  know  what  I  think,"  she 
answered  slowly.  "  Isn't  he  a  little  bit 
ludicrous.'*  He  is;  but  I  mean,  won't 
that  hurt  him .? " 

"That's  what  worries  Haversham," 
said  the  warden.  **  He  wouldn't  do  in  an 
Irish  ward,  and  that's  true  for  you. 
But  out  here  — " 

He  stood  up  and  flung  away  his  cig- 
arette, and,  plunging  his  hands  in  his 
pockets,  began  walking  up  and  down. 
74 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

"Look  here,  Miss  Coleridge,'*  he  said, 
halting  suddenly  before  her.  "  I'd  like 
to  know  what  you  think  about  it. 
Would  it  bore  you  to  death  if  I  told  you 
the  whole  story }'' 

"That  doesn't  need  an  answer,  cer- 
tainly," she  said,  "but  do  you  mean  it.'^ 
Or  are  you  paying  compliments  ^  " 

"  Well,  we  break  even,"  he  remarked. 
"  That  wants  no  answer,  either.  Won't 
you  come  into  my  office  }  I  can  make 
things  a  little  plainer  in  there." 

After  that  evening  Anne  Coleridge 
rapidly  grew  to  be,  though  not  a  power 
in  the  campaign,  at  least  an  influence. 
Not  at  once,  however;  for  the  warden 
was  cautious  even  when  appearances 
were  as  promising  as  they  were  here. 
But  when  he  found  that  she  saw  the  re- 
lations of  things  quickly  and  pretty 
justly,  and  that  when  he  asked  her 
opinion  she  told  him  what  she  thought 
and  not  what  she  guessed  he  wanted 
her  to  think,  he  gave  a  good  deal  of 
weight  to  her  opinions. 
75 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

Of  course,  now  that  the  campaign 
was  fairly  started,  Carter  Hall  talked  of 
very  little  else.  Ramsay  had  no  love 
for  mystery  for  its  own  sake,  and  he 
talked  about  what  they  had  done  and 
were  about  to  do  with  the  utmost  frank- 
ness. But  when  he  talked  with  her 
there  was  a  difference.  He  told  her  his 
notions  before  he  had  decided  for  him- 
self whether  they  were  good  or  not,  and 
often  he  made  her  the  unconscious  ar- 
biter between  himself  and  Haversham. 
They  saw  but  little  of  each  other,  for  she 
herself  was  busy  day  and  evening,  and 
the  warden  seldom  had  more  than  a 
moment's  leisure ;  but  thanks  to  a  cer- 
tain incisive  way  of  getting  to  the  point 
which  he  was  a  master  of  and  she  was 
quick  to  appreciate,  and  also  to  the  in- 
telligent sympathy  which  made  it  pos- 
sible for  each  to  follow  the  other's  short 
cuts,  they  got  a  good  deal  of  conference 
into  the  shreds  and  patches  of  time 
when  they  were  together. 

What  he  talked  of  most  with  her,  and 
76 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

what  he  discussed  with  no  one  else,  was 
his  hope  and  his  endeavour  to  win  to  his 
cause  the  support  of  Father  Lauth. 
He  had  mentioned  this,  you  may  remem- 
ber, to  Haversham  at  the  outset,  but  as 
he  had  seen  at  once  that  the  doctor 
could  be  of  no  assistance  to  him  here, 
he  resolved  to  do  what  he  could  alone. 
As  the  campaign  progressed  and  the 
strategical  positions  defined  themselves, 
he  grew  more  keenly  aware  that  the 
key  to  the  situation  was  in  the  priest's 
hands.  Without  him,  it  was  true  he 
might  win,  but  with  him  the  victory 
was  certain. 

A  very  pleasant  acquaintance  that 
might  almost  have  been  called  a  friend- 
ship existed  between  Ramsay  and  Father 
Lauth.  Their  more  bookish  tastes  and 
their  ideas  on  many  academic  questions 
were  close  enough  together  to  give 
scope  for  much  cordial  agreement  and 
genial  controversy,  and  the  warden  was 
sure  of  at  least  a  patient  hearing  of  his 
case;  he  presented  it  in  his  own  way, 
77 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

Straightforwardly,  and  without  suppres- 
sion of  anything.  But  the  priest  met 
him,  as  often  as  they  talked,  in  a  way 
that  he  found  very  baffling.  He  listened, 
he  asked  questions,  he  often  let  fall  very 
interesting  obiter  dicta,  but  Ramsay 
could  get  no  hint  as  to  what  his  real 
decision  was  to  be;  he  could  not  tell 
whether  his  words  were  accomplishing 
anything  or  whether  he  might  not  just 
as  well  be  trying  to  whistle  up  the  wind. 
It  was  here  that  Anne  Coleridge 
helped  him  most.  She  seemed  to  have 
a  sort  of  instinct  for  the  priest's  point 
of  view.  The  grain  of  her  mind  ran 
more  nearly  with  his  than  Ramsay's  did, 
perhaps,  and  often  she  could  reach  the 
thought  which  lay  behind  his  apparently 
casual  questions  and  irrelevant  com- 
ments. After  Ramsay  made  this  dis- 
covery, every  talk  with  Father  Lauth 
was  followed  by  another  with  the  girl 
which  usually  left  him  with  some  ground 
under  his  feet  —  with  the  f eehng  that  he 
had  something  to  go  on. 
78 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

"Fll  tell  you,"  he  said  one  day,  "if  I 
do  win  him  over,  it  will  be  you  who  did 
it." 

"  That^s  nonsense,  of  course  —  "  there 
she  made  a  little  pause,  "  but  I  liked  to 
have  you  say  it,  anyway." 


79 


CHAPTER  VI 


iLDERMAN  ALBERT  GOL- 
LANS  was  in  an  unenviable 
frame  of  mind.  The  insurrec- 
tion in  his  ward  had  in  its 
earlier  stages  afforded  him,  if  not  a  very 
genuine  amusement,  at  least  the  oppor- 
tunity to  appear  amused.  But  that 
period  was  long  passed.  They  were 
carrying  things  altogether  too  far.  All 
along  Cameron  Avenue  rebellion  was 
raising  its  head;  over  in  the  Italian 
colony  between  Hood  and  Byron  streets, 
Ramsay  was  talking  their  own  ridiculous 
lingo  to  enthusiastic  crowds  in  dingy 
halls  and  to  smaller  gatherings  on  the 
street  corners,  and  in  the  saloons,  and 
Gollans*s  lieutenant,  though  not  in  de- 
spair, represented  daily  that  it  would  be 
80 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

impossible  to  check  the  assault  without 
a  larger  supply  of  the  munitions  of  war. 

The  alderman^s  dominant  feeling 
about  it  was  one  of  irritation.  He  had 
not  yet  begun  to  consider  the  possibility 
of  defeat.  Down  in  the  Frying-pan, 
Haversham*s  own  quarter,  he  was  actu- 
ally making  gains.  He  stopped  to  smile 
when  he  thought  of  the  situation  down 
there  in  that  quarter.  And  up  to  this 
morning  the  campaign  in  the  German 
district,  though  it  was  here  that  he  was 
meeting  the  most  serious  losses,  had 
cost  him  but  little  concern,  for  here  they 
were  fighting  him  with  the  traditional 
reformer's  weapons,  mass-meetings  and 
morality,  and  it  would  be  a  colder  day 
than  one  was  likely  to  find  in  this 
climate  when  he  could  not  afford  to 
smile  at  such  methods. 

But  this  morning  the  report  had  come 
in  that  at  a  meeting  at  Carter  Hall  last 
night,  one  of  the  speakers  had  playfully 
referred  to  him  as  GoUanski !  The 
train  had  caught  at  once,  and  this  morn- 
G  8i 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

ing,  according  to  his  disgusted  lieutenant, 
the  whole  district  was  crackling  with 
it.  Gollanski!  His  sense  of  humour 
was  not  strong  enough  to  save  him 
from  labouring  half  an  hour  to  see 
whether  he  could  not  retaliate  with 
some  such  transformation  of  the  name 
of  his  rival,  Schmeckenbecker.  The 
whole  campaign  was  past  a  joke,  and 
GoUans  was  getting  mad  enough  to  do 
something. 

It  was  not  an  auspicious  time  for  any 
one  to  pay  the  alderman  a  call,  —  a  par- 
ticularly bad  one  for  Father  Lauth,  who 
always  wanted  money  for  this  thing  or 
that ;  but  a  priest  is  a  priest,  and  Gollans 
mustered  his  best  manner  as  well  as 
he  could  and  widened  his  mouth  in  an 
attempt  at  a  bland  smile.  They  talked 
for  a  few  minutes  pleasantly  enough 
about  parochial  matters;  Gollans  led, 
asking  one  question  after  another,  and, 
at  last,  with  the  idea  of  forestalling  the 
request  he  expected  the  priest  to  make, 
he  said :  — 

82 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

"  I  hope  it  won't  be  a  great  while 
before  I  can  make  you  another  donation 
for  the  school.  At  present  this  election 
that's  coming  takes  all  my  time  and 
what  small  money  I  can  spare.  But 
I'll  not  forget  you." 

The  priest  could  strike  to  the  roots 
when  he  chose,  and  for  reasons  of  his 
own  he  did  it  now.  "  I  have  not  come 
to  you  for  money  to-day,"  he  said ;  **  I 
have  come  to  ask  you  a  question.  If  you 
are  again  elected  alderman,  will  you  help 
to  improve  the  sanitary  condition  of  the 
tenements  }  —  or  will  you  hinder }  " 

Gollans's  face  turned  purple.  The 
question  was  a  flick  of  the  whip  on  a 
spot  which  his  antagonist  had  already 
worn  raw.  If  a  layman  had  asked  it, 
he  would  have  answered,  **What  the 
hell  does  it  matter  to  you } "  and  for  a 
second  he  was  near  forgetting  that  his 
inquisitor  was  not  a  layman.  The 
priest's  gesture  checked  him,  and  he 
modified  the  form  although  not  the 
spirit  of  this  retort. 
83 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

The  lines  in  Father  Lauth^s  face 
settled  deeper.  He  folded  his  arms  and 
waited.  After  expecting  for  a  moment 
that  he  would  say  something,  Gollans 
looked  up  at  him,  the  ugly  sneer  still  on 
his  face,  but  as  the  priest  met  his  glance, 
he  lowered  his  eyes  and  began  playing 
with  a  penholder  on  his  desk. 

Up  to  that  moment  he  was  simply 
irritated,  smarting  under  the  whip.  He 
was  not  an  imaginative  man ;  a  wholly 
new  idea  made  its  way  but  slowly  with 
him  to  the  point  of  apperception.  But 
the  black  figure  of  the  Redemptorist 
priest,  the  steady  resolution  in  his  eyes, 
the  look  of  conscious  power  about  his 
mouth  put  into  the  alderman's  mind 
the  vague  notion  that  Father  Lauth 
intended  to  beat  him,  and  that  he  knew 
he  could  do  it.  The  sneer  was  gone 
from  his  lips,  and  his  face  turned  from 
purple  to  yellowish  white  when  he 
looked  up  again  and  began  to  talk. 
For  the  first  time  he  was  trying  to 
look  defeat  between  the  eyes. 
84 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

"  We  have  always  pulled  together 
pretty  well,  Father,  haven't  we?  Fve 
tried  to  stand  by  you  and  youVe  left 
politics  to  me  —  " 

"  You  have  not  answered  my  ques- 
tion," said  the  priest.  "That  is  what 
I  ask,  an  answer ! "  He  spoke  gently 
enough,  but  the  tone  of  the  last  words 
was  peremptory. 

Gollans  moved  uneasily  in  his  chair. 
"Your  school  means  a  great  deal  to 
you.  Father,"  he  began,  but  Father 
Lauth's  uplifted  head  and  the  blazing 
light  in  his  eyes  checked  him. 

"  You  are  trying  to  offer  either  a 
threat  or  a  bribe  —  stop  there,  and  an- 
swer my  question." 

"  I  will  answer  your  question  when 
the  time  comes.  But  it  has  nothing 
to  do  with  Haversham  and  Schmecken- 
becker  and  this  next  election.  They're 
grafters,  and  all  there  is  to  their  cam- 
paign is  graft.  They  put  up  a  reform 
front  because  they  hoped  they  could  get 
you  to  help  them.  They  lied  to  you." 
8s 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

He  got  on  his  feet,  kicked  his  chair 
out  of  his  way,  and,  leaning  over  his 
desk,  shook  his  finger  at  the  priest. 
"  Look  at  Haversham.  He's  a  re- 
former, he  is !  Making  speeches  to 
Woman's  Clubs  all  over  the  city  and 
reeling  off  his  goody-good  talk.  I 
wonder  if  they  know  who  his  patients 
are  and  how  he  makes  a  living !  As 
for  Ramsay — "  Gollans  was  excited, 
and  his  perception  was  quicker  than 
usual  —  "  Ramsay  may  mean  all  right, 
but  he  don't  know  what  he's  up  against. 
He  thinks  that  little  Dutchman  '11  take 
his  orders  after  he  gets  into  the  coun- 
cil, and  that's  where  he's  dead  wrong. 
Schmeckenbecker's  going  to  stick  it  into 
him  just  as  soon  as  he  gets  the  chance." 

He  was  watching  the  priest  closely ; 
he  seemed  to  be  making  no  headway 
whatever.  And  then  a  happy  thought 
struck  him.  He  laughed  slowly,  and 
said,  in  conclusion,  "  In  fact,  I  happen 
to  know  that  he's  got  the  pipes  laid  to 
do  it  already." 


^f — ^ 

-i    - 

'0 

J 

1 ' 

coo                   :' 

_ 

y 

^ 

i 

THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

That  shot  told.  Father  Lauth  frowned. 
"This  is  no  time  for  trifling,"  he  said.  "  If 
you  can  prove  such  a  charge  as  that,  do 
it." 

"  I  can  prove  it,"  said  Gollans,  "  and 
I'll  be  able  to  show  you  the  proof  inside 
of  forty-eight  hours." 

"•  Very  good,"  said  the  priest.  "  I  shall 
come  to  see  it."  He  rose  and  started 
toward  the  door,  but  Gollans  had  one 
thing  more  to  say. 

"I'm  proving  this  for  you.  Father, 
but  not  for  Mr.  Ramsay.  I  owe  him 
no  favours.  I'll  thank  you  not  to  men- 
tion what  I've  said  to  him." 

The  priest  nodded  assent,  and,  with  a 
brief  good  morning,  strode  away. 

Gollans's  charge  against  Schmecken- 
becker  had  been  made  quite  on  the  spur 
of  the  moment,  and,  after  the  priest  had 
gone  away,  he  feared  a  little  that  the 
time  he  had  allowed  himself  was  too 
short,  for  he  had  not  only  to  collect  the 
proof  but  to  invent  the  crime  as  well. 
But  in  forty-eight  hours  one  can  get 
87 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

evidence  of  sorts,  of  almost  anything, 
and,  of  course,  he  did  not  need  real 
court-of-law  proof.  A  few  black-look- 
ing circumstances  would  be  enough  to 
arouse  Father  Lauth's  suspicions  and 
keep  him  out  of  the  campaign. 

Gollans  had  heard  a  rumour  that 
Schmeckenbecker  was  getting  **  chesty," 
in  other  words  that  the  success  of  his 
campaign  had  turned  his  head,  and  that 
the  constant  supervision  of  his  two  man- 
agers was  becoming  irksome  to  him.  He 
wanted  his  head,  and  they  were  afraid  to 
let  him  have  it.  That  hint  gave  Gollans 
something  to  start  with.  He  sent  for 
two  of  his  henchmen  to  whom  he  had 
decided  to  confide  the  affair,  and  by  the 
time  they  had  arrived,  he  had  their  in- 
structions ready.  They  were  much 
pleased  and  entirely  confident. 

"  But,  remember,"  said  Gollans, 
"  you've  got  only  to-day  and  to-morrow, 
and  get  it  in  writing  if  you  can.  Get 
it  in  writing,  boys,  and  we  have  them 
by  the  short  hairs." 
2>Z 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

The  rumour  about  Schmeckenbecker 
was,  unhappily,  not  far  beyond  the  truth, 
and  Ramsay  and  Haversham  were  greatly 
worried  about  him.  Each  new  success 
made  him  worse,  until  at  last  they  had 
yielded  to  necessity  and  allowed  him  to 
take  pretty  much  his  own  gait.  "  He's 
sure  to  make  a  fool  of  himself,"  Haver- 
sham commented,  **but  the  result  may 
be  all  right.  He  may  scare  himself 
half  to  death  without  doing  any  serious 
damage." 

Schmeckenbecker's  throat  had  become 
chronically  numb  ;  his  stumpy  little  legs 
were  always  tired,  and  he  had  sweated 
off  about  fifteen  pounds,  but  his  soul 
soared  majestic,  like  the  eagle.  For 
forty  years  people  had  patronised  him 
and  often  laughed  at  him,  had  left  him 
and  Mrs.  Schmeckenbecker  completely 
alone  in  the  idea  that  he  was  a  great 
man.  He  had  many  friends,  but,  seem- 
ingly, none  of  them  had  ever  so  much 
as  suspected  that  he  was  a  great  man. 
But  at  last  his  opportunity  had  come  and 
89 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

he  had  seized  it.  And  what  a  reward, 
after  those  years  of  waiting ;  to  be  cheered 
nightly  by  enthusiastic  audiences,  to  see 
his  name  in  the  newspapers  day  after 
day,  to  be  the  subject  of  long  editorials 
—  it  was  worth  waiting  for. 

And  he  owed  it  all  to  himself.  He 
felt  no  debt  of  gratitude  to  Ramsay  and 
Haversham.  They  were  merely  the 
instruments  of  fate.  And  they,  indeed, 
had  seemed  to  envy  him  his  greatness, 
had  shown  a  petty  desire  to  detract  from 
his  triumph,  and  interfere  in  what  was 
purely  his  affair.  They  were  coming  to 
their  senses  at  last,  however,  and  leav- 
ing him  to  manage  his  campaign  as  he 
thought  best. 

It  was  well  they  had  ceased  meddling. 
He  had  done  one  or  two  very  shrewd 
strokes  of  business  in  the  past  twenty- 
four  hours.  Two  lodging-house  keepers 
down  in  the  Frying-pan,  Hintz  and 
Johnson,  who  had  hitherto  been  re- 
pubUcans,  were  going  to  support  him, 
and,  more  than  that,  were  going  to 
90 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

round  up  their  lodgers  for  him.  He 
had  met  with  some  losses  in  the  Fry- 
ing-pan, and  this  would  counterbalance 
them.  They  had  come  to  see  him,  and 
on  their  telling  him  of  some  dissatis- 
faction they  felt  toward  GoUans,  he 
had  promptly  won  them  over.  Not  for 
nothing,  of  course.  All  politics  is  a 
matter  of  trade,  and  he  had  promised 
them  that  when  the  new  tenement  law 
went  into  effect,  he  would  see  to  it  that 
they  were  protected.  For  was  it  not 
better  that  all  the  tenements  but  those 
tw  should  be  made  sanitary  than  that 
none  should  be  1 

They  had  asked  him  to  put  the  agree- 
ment in  writing.  He  didn't  know  whether 
he  would  or  not.  A  matter  like  that 
might  be  embarrassing.  Well,  he  would 
see. 


91 


CHAPTER  VII 

|N  the  Sunday  before  the  elec- 
tion Ramsay  found  himself 
after  dinner  in  possession  of 
an  hour  in  which  there  was 
nothing  that  he  must  do,  and  as  they 
had  some  strangers  from  out  of  town 
on  their  hands,  he  was  piloting  them 
about  the  place.  They  were  going 
through  the  schoolhouse,  looking  at 
rooms  for  cooking  classes,  wood  and 
iron  working,  kindergartening,  and  so 
on,  when,  halting  before  a  door,  they 
heard  some  one  playing  the  piano. 

Ramsay  listened  an  instant.  "  No, 
there's  no  class  in  here  now,"  he  said, 
**  and  the  room  is  exactly  like  the  last 
one  we  looked  at.  We'll  go  on  down 
this  way,  if  you  please." 
92 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

He  took  them  to  the  library,  turned 
them  over  to  another  resident,  and  went 
back  to  the  schoolroom.  He  knew  who 
it  was  he  had  heard  playing,  and  he  felt 
pretty  sure  that  she  was  alone. 

**Is  this  your  favourite  piano.***'  he 
asked,  after  she  had  told  him  he  might 
come  in.  Countless  hours  of  kinder- 
garten marches  had  worn  through  the 
two  middle  octaves,  and  the  keys  sagged"! 

"Oh,  it's  in  tune,"  she  said.  "And 
when  you  run  off  to  hide  yourself,  you 
must  take  what  you  can  get;  a  dry 
morsel,  you  know,  and  quietness  there- 
with —  " 

They  were  pretty  well  acquainted 
now,  and  she  was  not  afraid  of  his  say- 
ing, "  I  fear  I  intrude,"  or  "  Were  you 
trying  to  hide  from  everybody.?"  He 
nodded  curtly. 

"Do  you  mind  playing  that  thing 
again }  —  the  rocking-horse  part } " 

She  began  the  familiar  ballade  got 
about  half  through,  and  lost  herself. 
Then,  impatiently,  she  faked  a  cadence 
93 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

into  the  original  key,  and  shook  her 
head.  ''  It  won't  do.  Mr.  Ramsay, 
will  you  let  me  ask  you  a  silly  ques- 
tion }     You  don't  have  to  answer  it." 

"  I  think  I  know  what  it  is,"  he  said 
gravely.     "Yes,  ask  it.'* 

"  Well,  then  —  oh,  it  is  silly,  but  — 
Am  I  any  good  out  here,  at  all }  Am  I 
really  pulling  my  weight,  or  am  I  just 
going  through  the  motions  } " 

**  Yes,"  he  said,  nodding  thoughtfully, 
"  that's  the  question.  We  all  ask  it  now 
and  then,  and  nobody  can  answer,  for 
himself  or  for  anybody  else.  The  only 
thing  to  do  with  it  is  to  wear  it  out." 
He  was  talking  half  to  himself,  for  he 
needed  that  particular  homily  as  much 
as  she  did,  but  after  a  moment's  pause 
he  roused  himself  and  turned  to  her. 

"Of  course,"  he  said,  "you  know 
without  my  telling  you  —  "  He  smiled. 
"  So  I  won't  tell,  but  you  know  just  the 
same." 

She  flushed  a  little  with  pleasure,  and, 
smiling,  began  a  phrase  of  the  ballade 
94 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

again,  but  checked  it  abruptly  as  she 
thought  of  something  else.  "  Did  you 
see  Mr.  Schmeckenbecker  this  after- 
noon }  *'  she  asked. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  pulling  up  a  chair. 
**And  confound  Mr.  Schmeckenbecker! 
He  keeps  me  guessing  more  than  Gol- 
lans.  He's  off  on  a  new  tack  to-day, 
meeker  than  a  toy  lamb.  Wanted  my 
advice  about  everything,  and  showed 
me  his  speech  for  the  big  meeting  to- 
morrow night  at  Harrison's  Theatre. 
He  said  he  didn't  want  to  make  any 
mistakes." 

"  Well,  but  what  in  the  world  does  it 
mean.'*" 

"  It  means,  I  suppose,  that  he  has 
committed  some  colossally  stupid  blun- 
der, and  he's  afraid  I'll  find  out  what 
it  is." 

She  quite  agreed  with  him.  "  Though, 
very  likely,"  she  added,  "  it  isn't  as  bad 
as  he  thinks  it  is." 

"  Perhaps  not,"  said  the  warden,  **and 
perhaps  it's  worse."  He  rose  and  began 
95 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

his  old  patrol,  adapted  to  the  narrow 
limits  of  his  office,  four  strides  and  an 
about-face,  and  she  watched  him  as  she 
had  often  watched  before.  It  had  never 
occurred  to  her  before  that  it  was  possible 
for  Douglas  Ramsay  to  be  slack-nerved, 
weary,  in  need  of  a  little  encouragement 
and  support  himself.  But  she  saw  now 
how  the  spring  had  gone  out  of  his 
stride,  how  his  head  drooped,  and  how 
haggard  his  eyes  were,  and  there  was 
something  pleasant  about  the  discov- 
ery. 

"  We  shall  be  beaten  on  Tuesday,"  he 
said.  "  I  know  that  as  well  as  I  shall 
on  Wednesday  morning.  Up  to  yester- 
day we  were  winning,  but  last  night  the 
tide  set  the  other  way.  I  can't  tell  you 
how  I  know,  but  it's  true." 

"I  know,"  she  said,  and  something 
different  in  the  quality  of  her  voice  ar- 
rested his  stride.  **  How  many  speeches 
have  you  made  since  last  Sunday }  And 
how  many  hours  have  you  slept  ? " 

"Well,  you  may  be  right,"  he  said. 
96 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

"  But  I  don't  think  it  altogether  a  ques- 
tion of  fag." 

She  began  the  ballade  again  and  this 
time  she  played  it  through,  though  half 
her  mind  was  somewhere  else.  **  Mr. 
Ramsay,"  she  said,  when  she  had  fin- 
ished, "what  are  you  going  to  do  to- 
morrow.?" What  with  watching  her 
and  listening  to  her  music  he  had  wan- 
dered far  away  from  the  campaign  and 
from  himself,  and  he  came  back  with  an 
effort. 

**  About  six  things  a  minute  during 
the  day  and  three  big  meetings  in  dif- 
ferent parts  of  the  ward  in  the  evening." 

"They're  a  sort  of  last  rally,  aren't 
they.?" 

"Yes,  they'll  get  the  last  ounce  of 
steam  we've  left." 

"  Well,  don't  you  think  —  "  That  was 
the  wrong  beginning  and  she  stopped 
in  some  embarrassment.  He  glanced 
at  her  in  surprise.  She  had  been  so 
good  a  comrade  during  those  weeks 
that  he  had  forgotten,  or  thought  he 
H  97 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

had,  that  she  was  anything  else.  This 
reminder  pleased  him. 

She  got  the  right  start  in  a  minute. 
"  I  have  to  go  home  to-morrow  to  —  to 
attend  to  a  few  things,  and  I  shall  be 
there  all  day.  You  won't  have  a  minute 
by  yourself  out  here,  and  you  ought  to 
rest  a  little  for  the  evening's  work. 
Nobody  will  be  able  to  find  you  at  our 
house,  and  you  won't  have  to  meet  any- 
body, nor  talk,  nor  do  anything  you 
don't  want  to  —  not  even  drink  tea. 
You  don't  need  to  say  in  advance  when 
you're  coming  or  that  you're  coming  at 
all.  But  if  you  think  it  would  be  a  rest 
to  come,  I'll  be  very  glad  to  have  you." 

The  half  hour  with  her  had  refreshed 
him,  and  he  buckled  into  his  Sunday 
evening  work  with  more  zest  than  he 
had  felt  for  the  past  three  or  four  days, 
but  the  notion  —  he  did  call  it  a  premoni- 
tion—  that  they  were  going  down  to 
defeat  on  Tuesday  was  not  to  be  got 
*  rid  of.  He  found  it  still  in  possession 
when  he  waked  up  Monday  morning, 
98 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

and  with  it  he  felt  the  dragging  fatigue 
which  she  and  her  music  had  driven 
away  for  a  while  last  evening. 

He  worked  as  hard  as  ever,  he  an- 
swered every  one  of  the  multitudinous 
demands  that  were  made  upon  him 
promptly  and  almost  as  effectively  as 
though  he  had  been  fresh,  but  he  real- 
ized that  it  was  bad  economy.  It  was 
like  making  a  ten-horse-power  engine 
pull  a  fifteen-horse  load.  A  good  many 
times  during  that  morning  he  thought 
for  an  instant  of  the  hour  he  was  to 
have  before  dinner-time  when  he  could 
let  go,  when  there  would  be  no  questions 
to  answer,  no  decisions  to  make,  and  he 
blessed  Anne  Coleridge  for  thinking 
of  it. 

He  was  out  about  the  ward  for  two 
or  three  hours  after  lunch,  and  when  he 
came  back,  he  found  that  Mr.  Payne  — 
he  was  ex-president  of  the  Carter  Hall 
Association,  you  remember  —  had  been 
calling  him  up  on  the  telephone  at  in- 
tervals of  fifteen  minutes  for  the  past 
99 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

hour,  and  had  finally  said  that  he  would 
come  out  to  the  Hall  and  wait  until  Mr. 
Ramsay  came  back. 

He  was  evidently  much  disturbed 
about  something,  and  Ramsay  won- 
dered, a  little  uneasily,  what  it  could  be. 
He  had  not  concerned  himself  at  all, 
heretofore,  in  the  campaign,  and  some- 
thing serious  —  to  his  thinking  at  least 
—  must  have  occurred  to  drag  him  in 
thus,  at  the  eleventh  hour.  Ramsay 
dreaded  the  approaching  interview. 
Mr.  Payne  was  prone  to  wander,  he 
was  old,  he  was  opinionated,  and  yet 
he  never  seemed  to  know  exactly  what 
his  opinion  was.  The  warden  braced 
himself  when  he  heard  the  uncertain 
voice  of  his  visitor  out  in  the  hall  in- 
quiring for  him.  He  was  very  old,  and 
whatever  he  said  or  did,  one  must  not 
forget  that. 

He  came  in  labouring  under  a  strong 
excitement  and  almost  helpless  from  it. 
For  a  minute  or  two  after  Ramsay  had 
got  him  into  a  chair  he  could  only  say : 

lOO 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

"This  is  very  shocking,  Mr.  Ramsay. 
I  don't  know  what  we  are  to  do.  I 
don't  indeed." 

"I  don't  know  what  you  refer  to, 
sir,"  said  the  warden,  gently.  "Have 
you  heard  bad  news.?  We'll  hope  it 
isn't  as  bad  as  it  seems." 

He  was  totally  unprepared  for  the 
outburst  which  followed. 

"You  have  brought  this  upon  us!" 
cried  the  old  man.  "  You  might  better 
have  pulled  down  Carter  Hall  stone  by 
stone.  You  have  discredited  us  and  un- 
done the  work  of  years.  Oh,  we  should 
have  kept  close  watch  !  " 

"  How  have  I  done  this,  Mr.  Payne } 
What  have  I  done .?  " 

"  You  were  responsible,  were  you  not, 
for  this  outrageous  nomination  of  —  of 
—  his  name  escapes  me.  You  publicly 
pledged  the  confidence  and  support  of 
Carter  Hall  to  him,  to  a  common  black- 
mailer, a  low,  intriguing  politician  — " 

Ramsay  interrupted  him,  not  roughly, 
but  in  a  voice  that  compelled  his  silence 

lOI 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

and  attention.  "  In  a  campaign  like  this, 
loose  personal  charges  are  often  in- 
dulged  in  by  both  sides.  Whoever  has 
told  you  those  things  has  misinformed 
you.  What  you  say  about  Mr.  Schmeck- 
enbecker  is  not  true.  He  is  a  perfectly 
respectable  man,  a  manufacturer  of 
cigars.  He  is  not  a  blackmailer.  He 
has  never  been  active  in  politics  before ; 
in  fact,  he  is  not  as  much  a  politician  as 
the  situation  demanded.  But  as  far  as 
honesty  and  decency  go,  I  will  guar- 
antee him." 

The  warden  thought  he  was  perfectly 
cool,  but  it  is  to  be  doubted  if  he  would 
have  said  that  last  sentence  if  he  had 
been.  The  violence  of  the  old  man's 
attack  had  made  him  forget  the  uneasi- 
ness Schmeckenbecker  had  caused  him 
during  the  past  day  or  two.  However, 
nothing  that  could  be  said  to  Payne  had 
any  weight  with  him  now. 

"  I  do  not  accept  your  guarantee,"  he 
cried.  "You  have  forfeited  our  confi- 
dence.    You  have   allied  yourself  with 

102 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

thugs  and  anarchists.  You  have  used 
Carter  Hall  to  further  your  personal 
ambitions  — '' 

**I  have  done  nothing,  Mr.  Payne, 
which  I  did  not  tell  you  openly  and 
before  I  had  lifted  a  hand,  that  I  meant 
to  do/* 

Ramsay  had  in  mind  a  good  deal 
more  to  say.  He  understood  Payne's 
attitude  perfectly.  When  the  old  man 
had  voted  assent  to  the  campaign,  he 
had  probably  not  been  aware  that  Gol- 
lans  was  a  republican  ;  he  had,  no  doubt, 
assumed,  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  so 
bad  a  man  must  be  a  democrat.  It  was 
unlikely,  since  he  lived  principally  in 
the  past,  that  he  had  given  the  matter 
another  thought  until  last  night,  or  per- 
haps this  morning,  when  some  of  the 
Great  Ones  in  the  party  had  waited 
upon  him.  Ramsay  wondered  if  Old 
Uncle  John  himself  hadn't  made  one 
of  that  informal  committee.  It  wasn't 
unlikely. 

They  had  given  him,  of  course,  a  hor- 
103 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

rible  fright,  had  made  it  clear  to  him 
that,  unless  checked,  Ramsay's  course 
would  bring  ruin,  destruction,  anarchy, 
free  silver,  the  whole  pack  of  political 
hobgoblins,  upon  them  all,  and  had  sent 
him,  full  of  these  terrors  out  to  Carter 
Hall  to  "call  Ramsay  off/'  He  was 
the  oldest  of  the  twenty  associates  and 
traditionally  the  most  important,  and  he 
had  the  further  merit  of  being  the  only 
one  of  the  twenty  whom  the  committee 
could  have  sent  on  such  an  errand. 
They  may  not  have  had  much  confi- 
dence that  he  would  succeed,  but  it  was 
worth  a  trial  anyway. 

It  was  a  shame,  Ramsay  thought,  to 
treat  an  old  man  so,  and  he  resolved 
to  save  up  what  was  in  his  mind  to  say 
until  he  should  have  the  luck  to  fall  in 
with  a  member  of  that  committee. 

**  I'm  sorry  you've  lost  confidence  in 
me,  Mr.  Payne,"  he  said,  rising  and 
holding  out  his  hand.  **I  hope  some 
day  I  may  win  it  back  again.  I  shall 
always  try  to  deserve  it." 
104 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON,  AVENUE 

"  But  you  must  act  at  once/'  cried 
Mr.  Payne.  **This  candidate  of  yours 
is  a  rascal,  a  blackmailer.  If  he  is 
elected,  it  will  be  terrible.  You  must 
withdraw  your  support  before  to-morrow 
morning." 

Ramsay  spoke  very  quietly,  but  with 
perfect  finality.  "  I  can't  do  that,  Mr. 
Payne,"  and  the  unsuccessful  envoy 
went  back  to  his  committee. 

It  was  half -past  four  now.  The  war- 
den cast  a  glance  over  his  desk  and 
drew  a  long  breath.  He  pulled  on  his 
gloves,  seized  his  hat,  and  started  for 
the  door.  Just  as  he  was  shutting  it  he 
heard  some  one  call,  "Telephone,  Mr. 
Ramsay."  It  was  a  narrow  escape,  but 
just  as  good  as  though  it  had  been 
wider.  He  dashed  after  and  caught  a 
car  in  the  middle  of  the  block.  He  was 
like  a  schoolboy  out  for  recess. 

He  found  her  in  a  big  book-hned 
room,  seated  by  a  tea-table;  she  was 
always  dressed  so  that  it  was  a  pleasure 
to  look  at  her,  but  to-day  she  surpassed 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

herself.  She  did  not  rise,  but  nodded 
toward  a  big,  leather  chair.  "There 
are  the  cigarettes  and  matches  and 
things,'*  she  said,  "but  if  you'd  rather, 
you  may  smoke  your  pipe.  Yes,  really, 
you  may,"  she  assured  him.  "  My  little 
brother  always  smokes  a  pipe  when  he 
comes  back  from  college." 

"  Your  little  brother,"  commented 
Ramsay,  "  who  pulled  number  three  in 
the  'Varsity  boat  last  summer.  I  pulled 
that  oar  myself  once,  a  thousand  years 
ago." 

He  heard  a  heavy  door  opened  some- 
where, and  then  the  butler's  voice  quite 
distinctly,  "  Miss  Coleridge  is  not  at 
home."  With  a  movement  which  told 
of  infinite  comfort  and  satisfaction,  he 
settled  deeper  into  the  chair,  and  drew 
a  long,  fragrant  breath  through  his  pipe. 
She  was  watching  him  with  a  look  a 
little  amused,  a  little  curious,  but  wholly 
friendly. 

"You  give  one  plenty  of  surprises," 
she  said.  "  Yesterday  you  surprised  me 
1 06 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

by  looking  tired  and  out  of  sorts,  as  if 
you  needed  —  " 

"  *  A  touch  of  the  shoulder  to  preserve 
my  formation/  as  Mulvaney  said/'  he 
put  in,  for  she  had  hesitated.  "  I  did, 
and  you  gave  it  to  me." 

"  And  to-day,  when  I  have  absorbed 
that  idea  and  am  really  ready  to  rise  to 
the  occasion,  you  come  marching  along 
about  as  much  in  need  of  sympathy  as 
a  drum  major.  I  had  lots  of  sympathy 
to  lavish  on  you  this  afternoon  —  and 
look  at  you  !    What  am  I  to  do  with  it  .^ " 

"  I  need  it,"  he  said,  *'  never  mind 
appearances."  He  told  her  all  about 
his  interview  with  Mr.  Payne. 

"  Do  you  know  what  I  believe  } "  she 
said,  after  he  had  finished  and  she  had 
sat  thoughtfully  silent  for  a  while  over 
his  account  of  it.  "  I  believe  that  Father 
Lauth  has  said  something  to  Mr.  Gol- 
lans.  He  wouldn't  have  called  for  help, 
would  he,  unless  he  was  badly  fright- 
ened.? " 

**  I  believe  you're  right,"  he  said. 
107 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

"WeVe  made  noise  enough  to  scare 
most  people,  but  Gollans  is  an  old  stager 
and  not  easily  stampeded.  It's  much 
more  likely  that  Father  Lauth  has  taken 
a  hand.     That's  one  to  us,  certainly." 

He  seemed  to  speak  with  only  half 
his  mind  on  it,  as  though  it  mattered 
very  httle  after  all.  She  frowned  as  a 
doctor  will  over  a  puzzling  case.  "  Are 
you  still  entertaining  the  notion  that 
Mr.  Gollans  is  going  to  beat  you  to- 
morrow }  "  she  asked. 

"  It's  odd  about  that,"  he  said,  smiling. 
"  At  this  moment  I'm  perfectly  happy, 
perfectly  contented.  But  I'm  just  as  sure 
as  that  I'm  looking  at  you,  that  Gollans 
will  beat  us.  We  were  winning  up  to 
Saturday  night,  too." 

"  We're  not  going  to  talk  politics  this 
afternoon.  What  do  you  want  to  do } 
Did  you  bring  a  book  in  your  pocket 
or  do  you  want  to  be  amused  ?  I'll  do 
anything  you  like.'* 


zo8 


Wj^'iS 


CHAPTER  VIII 

IE  carried  with  him  as  he  strode 
down  town  from  her  house  the 
same  feeUng  of  detachment 
from  his  cares  which  had  come 
to  him  while  he  was  with  her.  He  thought 
about  the  speeches  he  must  make  dur- 
ing their  last  assault  that  evening,  he 
thought  upon  the  various  indirections 
of  Dr.  Haversham  and  the  perversity  of 
Schmeckenbecker,  but  they  seemed  to 
belong  to  a  story  he  was  reading.  He 
himself  was  still  looking  at  Anne  Cole- 
ridge, Hstening  to  her,  enjoying  every 
turn  of  her  head,  every  inflection  of  her 
voice. 

A    newsboy    was    crying    an   extra. 

Ramsay  had  been  aware  of  his  hoarse 

piping  all  the  way  down  the  block,  but 

now   the   words    took    meaning.     "All 

109 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

about  the  reform  election  scandal!" 
He  bought  a  paper ;  it  was  a  tri-coloured 
rag  with  no  morals,  a  good  scent,  and  a 
bad  smell.  **  Schmeckenbecker  a  black- 
mailer ! "  was  printed  in  type  so  large 
that  it  took  the  whole  top  half  of  the 
sheet.  He  ran  his  eye  hastily  over  the 
lower  half  of  the  page,  trying  to  learn 
the  nature  of  the  charge.  It  was  likely 
enough  to  be  true,  —  Schmeckenbecker 
was  fool  enough  for  almost  anything,  — 
but  what  was  it.?  There  were  ejacula- 
tions, insinuations,  but  where — ah,  here 
in  the  frame  in  the  middle!  A  facsimile 
of  a  typewritten  letter  with  Schmecken- 
becker's  signature  at  the  bottom  of  it. 

Well,  he  had  done  it.  The  letter  was 
a  clumsily,  or  cleverly,  written  thing, 
addressed  to  the  keepers  of  two  of  the 
worst  tenements  in  the  Frying-pan,  the 
purport  of  which  seemed  to  be  that  if 
they  would  support  him  to  the  extent  of 
their  ability,  he  would  see  to  it  that  they 
suffered  no  inconvenience  from  the  new 
tenement  law.     There  might,  or  might 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

not,  be  an  implication  in  it  that  if  they 
did  not  support  him,  they  knew  what  to 
expect. 

He  met  it  as  a  strong  man  meets  a 
blow,  with  a  wave  of  blood-hot  anger; 
but  in  a  moment,  while  still  he  stood 
there  with  the  letters  before  his  eyes, 
the  wave  receded  and  left  him  cold,  yet 
thinking  faster  than  a  man  can  think 
except  in  a  passion,  grappling  with  the 
question  what  to  do.  The  newsboy  was 
bawling  the  old  refrain  in  his  ears,  the 
crowd  jostled  him  impatiently,  but  for 
the  moment  he  did  not  stir.  Then  he 
hurried  down  to  the  cab  stand  in  the 
next  block  and  got  into  a  hansom. 
Schmeckenbecker,  he  reflected,  looking 
at  his  watch,  was  probably  at  supper  in 
his  rooms  over  the  cigar  shop  on  Cam- 
eron Avenue,  and  his  first  business  was 
with  Schmeckenbecker. 

He  found  him  as  he  expected,  and, 
evidently,   from   his    wordy   torrent    of 
explanation,   the    little    candidate    had 
already  seen  the  accusation. 
Ill 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

**  Is  it  true  ?  *'  asked  Ramsay,  cutting 
him  short. 

"  It  is  a  lie.'* 

'*  Then  it's  a  forgery.  Come.  We'll 
have  some  one  in  jail  for  this  in  an 
hour." 

"It  is  not  a  forgery,"  faltered 
Schmeckenbecker.  "  But  it  is  a  lie, 
a  twice-black,  dastard  lie." 

"  I  thought  so,"  said  Ramsay.  "  They 
wouldn't  have  been  fools  enough  to 
forge  it.  No  —  I  don't  want  to  hear. 
I  know  enough  about  it  now.  I  know 
all  I  want  to  know.  I  suppose  you  will 
deny  or  explain  the  thing  as  well  as  you 
can  at  the  meeting  to-night.  I  shall 
speak  at  those  meetings  myself  as  we 
have  arranged.  I  shall  go  my  own  way 
and  say  what  I  think  best.  I  shall  tell 
the  truth  as  far  as  I  know  it,  and  I  ad- 
vise you  to  do  the  same.  If  you  can 
explain  yourself,  well  and  good,  but  I 
shan't  concern  myself  with  that.  I'm  not 
going  to  try  to  rehabilitate  you.  I'm 
going  to  try  to  save  the  election.     I'll 

112 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

get  over  to  the  meeting  at  Harrison's 
Theatre,  but  I  may  be  a  little  late. 
You'll  begin  without  me,  of  course." 
Before  the  meaning  of  all  this  could 
fairly  get  past  Schmeckenbecker's  ears, 
the  wheels  of  Ramsay's  cab  were  already 
rasping  along  the  car  tracks  down  Cam- 
eron Avenue. 

Harrison's  Theatre  was  the  largest 
hall  in  the  ward,  but  every  seat  in  it 
was  occupied  long  before  the  hour  set 
for  the  meeting,  and  when  Schmecken- 
'becker  faced  the  audience  from  the 
stage,  he  saw  it  massed  solidly  every- 
where. There  did  not  appear  to  be 
room  for  one  more  to  get  in.  When  the 
main  entrance  was  blocked,  they  had 
found  out  the  side  door,  and  had  poured 
in  across  the  stage  until  the  biggest 
policeman  of  the  detail  was  given  orders 
that  nobody  else  should  come  in  that 
way,  whoever  he  was.  Four  out  of  five 
of  them  were  Germans,  for  the  theatre 
was  well  within  the  outskirts  of  that 
colony. 

I  113 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

Haversham  opened  the  meeting.  He 
was  never  a  good  speaker,  and  was  at 
a  sad  disadvantage  to-night,  for  he  was 
on  exceptionally  thin  ice.  The  audience 
did  not  want  his  jokes  and  parables,  but 
they  waited  patiently  for  him  to  finish. 
They  were  waiting  for  Schmeckenbecker. 

About  supper-time  the  candidate  had 
seen  down  in  his  part  of  the  ward  news- 
boys giving  away  copies  of  the  paper 
which  had  attacked  him  to  whoever 
passed  on  the  street,  and  it  had  made 
him  very  uncomfortable.  He  saw  those 
tri-coloured  sheets  scattered  about  in  his 
audience  like  fallen  leaves,  but  even 
without  this  portent,  he  must  have  been 
aware  that  this  meeting  was  like  none 
of  the  others  he  had  addressed  during 
the  campaign. 

He  was  nervous  while  Haversham 
spoke,  partly  in  anticipation  of  the  re- 
ception he  himself  was  likely  to  get 
from  the  audience,  when  the  doctor  had 
finished,  and  partly  from  an  uneasy 
memory  of  what  Ramsay  had  said  to 
114 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

him  at  supper-time.  But  when  the  time 
came,  he  felt  better.  It  was  a  familiar 
and  delightful  sensation  now  to  stand 
upon  a  platform  alone  in  the  eye  of  an 
audience,  and  also  Ramsay  had  not  yet 
come.  He  walked  down  to  the  foot- 
lights and  began  his  speech,  the  orator- 
ical masterpiece,  it  was  to  be,  of  the 
whole  series.  There  was  no  volley  of 
cheering  to  drown  out  his  first  phrases, 
and  compel  him  to  repeat  them,  and  the 
novelty  disconcerted  him  somewhat,  but 
he  plunged  ahead  bravely,  nevertheless. 
The  audience  waited  to  hear  what  he 
would  say,  how  he  would  try  to  explain 
this  charge  of  blackmail.  He  might,  per- 
haps, have  carried  it  off  with  merely  a 
bald  denial,  but  he  did  not  even  give  them 
that  satisfaction ;  he  gave  them  oratory. 
They  were  in  no  mood  for  that.  There 
was  a  sound  of  moving  feet  and  growl- 
ing voices,  and  then  somebody  shouted 
a  jeering  question  from  the  rear  of  the 
hall.  Schmeckenbecker  could  not  make 
out  the  words,  but  the  hostile  inflection 
115 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

was  not  to  be  mistaken.  "  I  did  not 
understand  you,"  he  said. 

**  What  do  you  say  to  this  t "  called 
the  man,  waving  the  newspaper. 

**  My  only  answer  to  that,"  answered 
Schmeckenbecker,  suiting  the  action  to 
the  word  as  well  as  he  could,  "  is  silent 
contemptuousness." 

"That  ain't  enough  for  us,"  shouted 
somebody  else,  and  there  followed  a 
roar  of  assent.  He  glared  at  them  an  in- 
stant and  tried  to  go  on  with  his  speech. 

They  did  not  let  him  go  far.  Even 
with  the  non-Teutonic  twenty  per  cent 
among  them,  and  the  few  choice  spirits 
from  Gollans's  headquarters  to  start  the 
ball  rolling,  they  were  slow  at  this  sort 
of  thing,  but  they  were  warming  to  their 
work  and  much  in  earnest  about  it. 

They  drowned  out  his  voice  when  he 
tried  to  speak,  they  fell  silent  when  he 
stopped,  to  give  way  to  some  rude  utter- 
ances from  the  gallery.  Haversham, 
who  saw  that  the  situation  was  past 
saving,  tried  vainly  to  signal  the  band 
ii6 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

to  strike  up,  and  at  the  same  time  whis- 
pered hoarsely  to  Schmeckenbecker  to 
sit  down. 

But  the  little  candidate  was  beyond 
reason.  He  faced  the  mob,  gallantly 
shouting  his  defiance  into  the  vortex  of 
sounds  which  swallowed  it  up.  Every 
one  of  their  taunts  cut  him  like  a  lash. 
They  were  laughing  at  him  !  Laughing 
in  his  face  !  It  was  a  bitter  crucifixion 
for  his  vanity,  but  he  stood  the  torture 
gamely,  and  not  without  a  certain  pitiful 
dignity. 

Some  man  not  far  from  the  front 
rolled  his  newspaper  into  a  wad  and 
flung  it  at  him.  It  fell  short,  but  the 
idea  was  caught  up  quickly,  and  the  ex- 
ecution improved  with  practice.  In  a 
moment  the  twisted  missiles  were  sailing 
all  around  him.  One  or  two  struck  his 
face. 

The   group   on   the  stage  were  in  a 

tumult.     Several  of  the  vice-presidents 

had  fled  precipitately  by  the  stage  door, 

while  others  with  Haversham  were  try- 

117 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

ing  by  a  sort  of  ludicrous  pantomime 
to  quiet  the  now  thoroughly  excited 
audience.  The  time  had  about  come,  it 
seemed,  for  a  general  retreat.  The  front 
part  of  the  mob  was  all  that  could  throw 
newspapers  with  effect,  and  somebody 
in  the  rear  of  the  centre  isle  seemed  to 
be  starting  a  movement  in  force  toward 
the  stage.  He  was  coming  on  as  fast 
as  he  could,  and  a  good  many  seemed 
disposed  to  follow  him.  He  was  draw- 
ing near  the  stage. 

"Thank  God,"  said  Haversham,  "it's 
Ramsay.  They  wouldn't  let  him  come 
through  the  stage  door.*' 

But  as  only  a  few  in  the  audience 
had  recognised  him,  his  progress  to  the 
front  had  been  misunderstood.  His  fol- 
lowers in  the  centre  and  his  imitators  to 
right  and  left  were  coming  along  in  fast 
increasing  numbers.  They  did  not  know 
what  they  meant  to  do  when  they  arrived, 
but  that  did  not  make  them  much  less 
formidable.  It  was  a  race  now,  a  ques- 
tion who  could  make  the  stage  first. 
ii8 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

Ramsay  won  it.  He  worried  out 
of  the  tangle,  scrambled  over  the  rail  to 
the  orchestra  pit,  over  the  piano  and 
the  footlights.  He  whirled  around  and 
faced  them,  flinging  out  his  big  hands 
before  him,  palms  forward.  They  knew 
who  he  was  now,  and  thanks  to  his 
dramatic  entrance,  they  paused  to  see 
what  he  would  do  next.  He  waited  an 
instant  for  silence,  and  when  it  came 
he  asked  quietly :  — 

"  Will  you  listen  to  something  I  have 
to  say } '' 

'*Will  you  tell  us  about  this.?  "  some 
one  demanded,  waving  a  still  unthrown 
newspaper. 

Again  he  had  to  wait  a  little,  then 
quietly  again,  simply,  but  with  no  over- 
done nonchalance  he  said,  "  I  know 
very  little  about  it ;  and  I  care  still  less. 
It  is  not  even  important,  if  true." 

Haversham,    who    thought    he    was 

braced  for  anything,  gasped.    Schmeck- 

enbecker  stopped  mopping  his  forehead 

with  his  black  silk  handkerchief,  and 

119 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

gaped  at  the  warden's  back.  For  a  good 
five  seconds  out  in  the  audience  there  was 
a  solid,  incredulous  silence.  Then  from 
the  gallery  came  a  solitary,  j  eering  guff  aw. 

"  Wait ! "  cried  the  warden,  for  the 
first  time  raising  his  voice.  "  Wait  till 
I  tell  you  who  else  is  laughing.  Do 
you  want  to  know.^  He  is  laughing, 
not  at  him  —  "  he  pointed  to  Schmeck- 
enbecker  —  '*but  at  you,  at  you  who 
laugh.  He  has  laughed  before,  and 
many  a  time,  and  always  at  you.  Shall 
I  tell  you  about  him  }  *' 

And  then,  with  a  grim  simplicity, 
Ramsay  told.  He  had  something  of 
the  orator's  instinct,  and  in  his  excite- 
ment he  acted  on  it.  The  guffaw  from 
the  gallery  gave  him  the  theme, — the 
man  who  laughed,  —  and  he  built  all  his 
speech  upon  it.  His  audience  had  spent 
its  hostility  on  Schmeckenbecker  and  in 
the  reaction  they  listened  to  him.  He 
had  his  will  with  them,  and  he  told  some 
of  the  times  in  the  past  ten  years  when 
the  man  had  laughed. 

I20 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

He  told  them,  in  conclusion,  of  his 
own  studies  in  the  ward,  of  the  map  he 
had  made  of  it,  and  how  he  had  taken 
it  to  this  man  and  shown  him  what  it 
meant.  '*  There  will  be  deaths  here, 
and  here,  and  here,"  he  said,  and  the 
man  had  laughed  at  him.  And  after 
the  epidemic  he  took  the  map  again  and 
showed  it  to  him,  with  the  yellow  crosses 
marking  where  they  had  died,  and  again 
the  man  laughed  at  him.  Had  he  not 
sent  flowers  to  most  of  the  funerals  .'* 

"  Now,"  he  said,  picking  up  a  news- 
paper at  his  feet,  "  you  ask  me  to  ex- 
plain this.  I  know  very  little  about  it. 
I  suppose  Schmeckenbecker  signed  it 
through  a  mistake.  I  have  not  asked 
him.  But  who  tricked  him  into  signing 
it }  The  man  who  has  laughed  at  you 
and  wants  to  laugh  again.  He  was 
frightened  yesterday,  he  means  to  laugh 
to-morrow.  It  won't  be  a  contest  to- 
morrow between  Schmeckenbecker  and 
Gollans,  but  between  you  and  GoUans. 
What    is    Schmeckenbecker     to    you  ? 

121 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

Nothing  but  what  you  make  him.  You 
make  and  you  can  unmake.  You  give 
and  you  can  take  away.  And  now  he 
knows  that.  You  have  told  him  to- 
night that  you  do  not  wish  him  to  sell 
protection  to  two  lodging-house  keepers. 
He  will  not  forget  what  you  have  told 
him  to-night.  He  will  do  your  bid- 
ding. If  you  elect  Gollans,  he  will  sell 
protection  and  all  his  two  hundred 
lodging-house  keepers.  If  you  elect 
Schmeckenbecker,  he  will  not  even 
protect  his  two.  You  may  be  quite 
certain  of  that,  even  though  he  signed 
that  paper. 

"There  he  is.  He  is  your  servant. 
He  has  not  learned  to  laugh  at  you. 
At  the  end  of  his  term,  if  you  want 
another,  choose  another.  But  do  not 
destroy  him  at  a  jibe  from  Gollans,  in 
order  that  Gollans  may  stand  in  his 
place.  You  can  choose  whether  Gollans 
shall  laugh  again  to-morrow  night  or 
not.  It's  between  you  and  him.  Think 
it  over." 

122 


CHAPTER   IX 

IT    three    o'clock     Wednesday 
afternoon    Douglas     Ramsay- 
walked  into  his  private  office 
and   locked   the   door  behind 
him.    He  sat  down  at  his  desk,  laid  a 
blank  sheet  of  letter  paper  before  him, 
and  dipped  his  pen  into  the  ink. 

For  just  an  instant  he  hesitated,  for 
an  instant  he  let  his  eyes  rest  on  the 
familiar  furniture  of  the  little  room. 
During  his  four  years  of  labour  here,  he 
had  sent  his  roots  deep,  the  strongest 
wrench  could  never  pull  them  all  out  of 
this  soil.  Part  of  him  must  always 
remain  here.  It  was  only  for  an 
instant  that  he  let  himself  go.  Then 
he  began  to  write,  in  his  cramped, 
123 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

scholarly  hand,  a  letter  to  the  president 
of  Carter  Hall  Association. 

*'  Will  you  please  call  a  meeting  of 
the  Association,  as  soon  as  it  can  be 
made  convenient,  to  act  upon  my  resig- 
nation, which  I  enclose  ? " 

On  another  sheet  he  wrote  as  fol- 
lows :  — 

"To  THE  Carter  Hall  Association. 
"  At  the  annual  meeting,  held  Janu- 
ary last,  I  obtained  your  permission  to 
make  an  attempt  to  secure  the  defeat  of 
Albert  Gollans,  alderman  from  this  ward, 
and  to  elect  in  his  stead  an  alderman 
who  would  help  instead  of  hindering 
our  endeavours  to  improve  the  sanitary 
conditions  in  this  and  other  parts  of  the 
city.  At  the  election  which  took  place 
yesterday  our  candidate  was  defeated 
by  a  small,  but  of  course  sufficient, 
majority.  I  have  been  active  in  his 
support,  and  this  result  is  as  much,  if 
not  more,  of  a  defeat  for  me  than  for 
him.  As  I  do  not  wish  Carter  Hall  to 
124 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

be  embarrassed  and  made  less  effective 
in  its  work  by  a  discredited  warden  who 
has  outlived  his  usefulness  in  this  field, 
I  herewith  hand  you  my  resignation  of 
that  office,  and  recommend  most  ear- 
nestly that  you  accept  it. 

"  Douglas  Ramsay,    Warden'' 

He  dropped  his  pen  on  the  desk ;  it 
rolled  to  the  edge  and  fell  on  the  floor. 
He  sat  staring  at  the  paper,  motionless 
except  for  the  big  muscles  in  his  neck 
which  twitched  and  tugged  at  one 
corner  of  his  mouth.  It  was  just  twelve 
hours  since  he  had  conceded  to  the 
waiting  reporters  that  Gollans  was 
elected.  Part  of  those  hours  he  had 
slept  away  in  complete  exhaustion,  the 
rest  of  them  spent  in  getting  up  arrears 
in  the  work  of  Carter  Hall.  He  had 
had  nothing  in  the  way  of  nourishment 
except  coffee  and  cigars  since  —  he 
knew  not  when.  He  ought  to  take  a 
glass  of  sherry  with  an  ^^g  in  it  and  go 
for  a  walk;  he  ought  to  strum  on  his 
125 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

piano  or  read  a  chapter  or  two  of 
**Morte  d' Arthur."  He  was  not  fit  for 
business.  That  phrase,  "  a  discredited 
warden  who  has  outlived  his  usefulness," 
betrayed  him. 

He  knew  all  that,  but  nevertheless  he 
sat  there  trying  to  goad  his  tired  mind 
to  grapple  with  the  future.  Until  now, 
though  he  had  for  several  days  expected 
defeat,  he  had  not  looked  beyond  the 
moment  when  he  should  tender  his 
resignation  to  the  Association  of  Carter 
Hall.  That  was  done  and  he  was  ask- 
ing, what  next } 

There  was  with  him  no  crude  question 
of  his  ability  to  get  a  job,  to  earn  a  liv- 
ing. He  had,  in  certain  spheres,  a  na- 
tional reputation;  there  were  two  offers 
lying  on  his  desk  now,  either  of  which 
the  world  would  regard  as  a  promotion 
and,  for  that  matter,  the  royalties  from 
the  sale  of  his  books  made  enough  to 
live  on  modestly.  But  what  was  he  to 
do }  Where  should  he  go  ?  He  be- 
longed here  in  the  ward,  he  lived  here. 
126 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

The  goading  was  all  in  vain.  His 
thoughts  were  like  a  broken  regiment. 
The  entrenchments  of  the  future  were 
too  much  for  them,  looked  too  high,  and 
after  every  attempt  they  came  pouring 
back  over  the  plain  of  his  recent  defeat. 
There  was  no  use. 

Somebody  knocked  at  his  door. 
"  Alderman  Gollans  is  here  to  see  you, 
Mr.  Ramsay." 

Ramsay  rubbed  his  forehead  like  a 
man  coming  out  of  a  dream.  "  FU  — 
ril  see  Gollans  in  a  minute  or  two. 
Tell  him  to  wait,  won't  you,  please }  *' 

He  swung  round  in  his  chair  and 
went  to  the  window  which  looked  out 
into  the  little  grass-grown  court.  Anne 
Coleridge  was  there  and  a  wilderness  of 
babies,  —  kindergarten  youngsters  whom 
she  was  trying  to  preserve  from  sudden 
death  in  one  way  or  another.  She 
nodded  to  him  and  he  answered  ab- 
sently, automatically,  for  the  sight  of 
her  did  not  really  get  to  his  mind  at  all. 
For  a  moment  he  stood  there.  When 
127 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

he  turned,  his  eyes  had  the  old,  bright 
light  of  battle  in  them. 

He  strode  to  the  desk  and  picked  up 
the  two  sheets  of  paper  which  lay  there, 
jerked  them  to  pieces  impatiently,  and 
threw  them  into  the  waste-paper  basket. 
Then  he  unlocked  the  door.  "  Come  in, 
Alderman,"  he  said.  "I'm  glad  to  see 
you." 

The  alderman  did  not  look  like  a  man 
who  had  just  won  a  victory,  and,  after 
they  were  seated  in  the  office,  Ramsay 
reminded  him  of  it. 

"Well,  you  were  right,"  he  said. 
"  You  beat  us  this  time.  But  own  up, 
didn't  we  make  a  good  fight.''" 

"  You  done  me  dirt,"  said  GoUans, 
sourly,  avoiding  the  question.  "  I  know 
who  it  was  started  to  misname  me  Gol- 
lanski,  and  I'll  perhaps  give  him  a  name 
he  won't  like  some  day.  And  as  for 
you,  you  lied  about  me,  too.  You  told 
them  Monday  night  that  I  killed  the 
people  off  and  then  sent  flowers  to  the 
funeral." 

128 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

"Well,  of  course  that's  true,'*  said  Ram- 
say, coolly.  *'  Did  you  never  think  of  it 
that  way  ?  But  I'm  sorry  you  take  it  per- 
sonally. I  supposed  from  your  coming 
out  here  that  you  meant  to  let  bygones 
be  bygones.     Why  did  you  come }  " 

"  I  came  out  to  see  what  you  meant 
to  do  —  from  now  on.'* 

"  What  do  you  mean  to  do } '' 

"I  tell  you  right  now,"  said  Gollans, 
"that  you'd  better  drop  it.  I  never 
raised  any  objections  to  Carter  Hall, 
but  you've  got  to  mind  your  own  busi- 
ness. And  if  you  monkey  with  my  buzz 
saw  again,  something's  going  to  drop. 
You  be  damned  careful  from  now  on  or 
you'll  lose  your  job." 

"  Now,  I'll  tell  you  what  I'm  going 
to  do,"  Ramsay  answered  pleasantly. 
"  We're  going  to  get  a  good  ready,  and 
next  time  we're  going  up  against  you 
again.  And  next  time  we'll  give  you  a 
fight  that  will  make  this  one  look  like  a 
picnic,  and  —  you  can  be  perfectly  sure 
of  this  —  we  shall  clean  you  out" 
K  129 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

Gollans  did  an  unwise  thing.  He  sat 
back  in  his  cjiair  and  laughed  aloud.  A 
laugh  reveals  more  than  many  words, 
and  the  alderman's  laugh  was  such  a 
mirthless  performance  that  Ramsay 
smiled. 

"  ril  tell  you  why/*  he  went  on.  "  Do 
you  know  why  people  have  voted  for 
you  all  these  years }  Because  it  never 
occurred  to  anybody  that  it  was  possible 
to  beat  you.  They  don't  care  anything 
about  you  personally.  You've  driven 
them  pretty  hard  when  it  comes  to 
that ;  you've  really  overdone  it  a  little. 
You've  got  the  idea  that  you're  the 
boss;  that  you  can  do  things  just  be- 
cause you  damn  please.  When  a  man 
gets  that  idea,  he's  ripe  to  be  picked. 
Now  then,  what  was  your  majority  yes- 
terday }  A  little  less  than  two  hundred. 
They  didn't  quite  drop  you.  But  they 
all  see  now  how  easy  it  would  be  to  do 
it.  We've  begun  our  next  campaign 
already,  and  there's  only  one  way  it  can 
end,  and  that  end  will  be  that  this  ward 
130 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

will  be  represented,  really  represented, 
in  the  council." 

The  warden  paused,  looked  at  GoUans, 
smiled,  and  went  on  very  slowly  :  '*  And 
you  know  all  this,  Mr.  Gollans,  as  well 
as  I  do.  That  is  the  reason  you  have 
come  out  here  to-day.  And  I  know  that 
as  well  as  you  do." 

"  Well,"  demanded  Gollans,  roughly, 
"  what  do  you  want }  It  comes  to  that, 
I  suppose." 

"Why,  yes,  I  suppose  it  does.  You 
want  to  know  how  much  it  will  take  to 
call  me  off.  Well,  as  long  as  you  do  as 
well  by  the  ward  and  by  the  city  as  an 
average  honest  man  is  likely  to,  Fve  no 
reason  for  trying  to  throw  you  out.  In 
fact,  I'd  rather  not,  for  a  new  man  is 
always  an  experiment.  You  have  a 
copy  of  my  tenement  bill,  haven't  you } 
If  not,  here's  a  duplicate." 

Gollans  was  silent  for  a  long  while. 
This  man  Ramsay  was  only  a  reformer 
after  all.  Here  he  was  in  a  position  to 
make  a  great  bargain  and  he  knew  it. 


THE  DUKE   OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

and  yet  all  he  asked  was  —  Gollans 
wiped  the  sweat  off  his  face,  for  it  had 
been  a  bad  quarter  of  an  hour  for  him. 

"  rU  look  this  over/'  he  said,  taking  the 
typewritten  sheets,  and  trying  to  get  back 
some  semblance  of  the  old,  ducal  con- 
descension into  his  voice.  "  I'll  look  it 
over  and,  if  it  seems  to  be  the  right  thing, 
we'll  try  to  pass  it  for  you,  Mr.  Ramsay." 

And  so  passed  the  glory  of  the  Duke 
of  Cameron  Avenue. 

Douglas  Ramsay  was  looking  out  of 
the  window  into  the  court.  The  babies 
had  gone  away,  but  Anne  Coleridge  was 
still  there,  and  this  time  the  warden 
saw  her  with  more  than  his  eyes.  He 
threw  up  the  sash  and,  vaulting  the  sill 
into  the  court,  stood  before  her.  She 
looked  up  at  him,  and  then  :  — 

"  What  is  it .?  '*  she  demanded.  "  What 
has  happened }  *' 

"  We  win  !  "  he  cried.  "  No,  not  the 
election,  but  better.  We  win  Gollans. 
He  came  out  to  see  me.  He  promises 
to  be  good." 

132 


THE  DUKE    OF  CAMERON  AVENUE 

She  drew  a  long  deep  breath  of  the 
April  air,  and  held  out  her  two  hands. 
"  Oh,  Tm  so  glad,"  she  said. 

**  I  don't  know  what  I  am,  over  it. 
He  came  just  in  time  for  me.  I'd 
already  written  them  —  you  (I  forget 
that  you're  one  of  them)  —  my  resig- 
nation." 

"  You  didn't  intend  to  resign  } " 

He  nodded.  "But  I've  torn  it  up, 
and  if  they  want  it,  they'll  have  to  ask 
for  it.  What  a  day  it  is  !  What  a  day ! 
It  smells  good  even  out  here." 

"  It's  helped  me  to  forget  yesterday,'* 
she  said. 

He  looked  at  his  watch.  "  There  are 
two  hours  of  it  left,"  he  said.  "  Come, 
let's  take  a  holiday." 

She  hesitated  a  moment.  "  We  have 
no  excuse  for  such  a  thing  any  more," 
she  said. 

*'  Not  an  excuse  in  the  world,"  he 
answered,  smiling.    **  Won't  you  come }  " 

Still  she  hesitated,  though  not  as  if  in 
doubt.     "  Yes,"  she  said. 
133 


HENRY    KITCHELL    WEBSTER,    the 

author  of  '*  Calumet  K"  and  "Roger 
Drake  :  Captain  of  Industry,"  was  born 
at  Evanston,  Illinois,  September  7,  1875, 
the  son  of  Towner  Keeney  and  Emma 
Josephine  Webster.  After  going 
through  the  preparatory  schools  of  his 
native  town,  he  graduated  at  Hamilton 
College,  New  York,  in  June,  1897. 
For  a  year  he  served  as  instructor  in 
rhetoric  at  Union  College,  Schenectady. 
His  very  first  story,  "  The  Short-line 
War,"  which  he  wrote  in  collaboration 
with  Samuel  Merwin,  made  a  decided 
hit.  Mr.  Webster  had  recognized  the 
splendid  literary  material  that  was  lying 
unused  in  the  romance  of  business  life 
in  the  United  States;  and  he  wrought 
it  into  the  fabric  of  a  vigorous  and 
manly  and  spirited  tale,  which  held  the 
attention  of  his  readers  to  the  end.  It 
was  a  new  kind  of  fiction,  written  in  a 
fresh  and  novel  way,  and  it  was  bright 
and  entertaining.  "  The  Banker  and 
the  Bear:  The  Story  of  a  Corner  in 
Lard,"  followed  in  1900,  a  year  after 
I 


"The  Short-line  War";  and '*  Calumet 
K,"  the  story  of  the  building  of  a  grain 
elevator,  and  what  it  meant  to  the  peo- 
ple who  built  it  against  time  and  to 
the  people  who  tried  to  prevent  their 
finishing  it,  followed  in  1901.  Early  in 
1903  appeared  "  Roger  Drake :  Captain 
of  Industry,"  which  some  excellent 
judges  consider  one  of  the  best  of  re- 
cent stories  for  a  man.  Mr.  Webster 
was  married  on  September  7,  1901,  to 
Miss  Mary  Ward  Orth. 


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